
Class 



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SONNETS 



SELECTED FROM 
ENGLISH AND AMERICAN 
AUTHORS 



BT 



LAURA E. LOCKWOOD, Ph.D. 

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
IN WELLESLEY COLLEGE 




BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



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COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



R. L. S. 244 



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CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 

JAN 24 1916 



PREFACE 

In bringing together this group of sonnets, I have had in 
mind, first, the lover of English poetry who will, I hope, wel- 
come a small and convenient volume containing so many of 
his favorite sonnets; and secondly, my own students of Mil- 
ton, who come to the reading of his sonnets with a vague 
interest in this form of poetry, but with little historical or 
technical knowledge about it. They need to read before and 
after Milton, in order to understand him by comparing his 
work with that of others; and the sonnet collections hitherto 
made from the whole field of English literature are in vol- 
umes too expensive for use in large classes. 

With these objects in mind, I have read from Wyatt and 
Surrey to the authors in the last number of Poetry, selecting 
and rejecting, culling and re-culling, until I here offer what 
seems to me representative of the best English sonnets. 
There appears a slightly larger proportion of sonnets before 
Shakespeare, because these are least well known and also 
the most difficult to obtain. Except in two or three cases, 
sonnets have been excluded whose entire theme is the de- 
scription of natural scenery, since such subjects rarely have 
the inherent unity demanded by the sonnet, however beau- 
tiful they may be as poetry. The fact that sonnets have 
appeared in other collections has not in the least influenced 
their inclusion or exclusion, for the ''best is the best, though 
a hundred judges have declared it so." The working basis 
has been to seek sonnets with a clear theme, a definite some- 
thing to say; and as far as possible to choose only those that 
develop this thought, according to a clearly conceived plan, 
in musical, imaginative language. But by no means is every 
one of these two hundred sonnets great, for a great sonnet is 
one of the rarest things in literature; real greatness has been 



PREFACE 

achieved in few cases. Some of the sonnets have been in- 
cluded for significance of thought, although faulty in rhyme 
scheme or lacking power in music; others below excellence 
in thought, development, or diction have been given place, 
because they are the highest achievement of the unpoetical 
age in which they were written. If, however, all together 
they represent the best our English poets have accomplished, 
they show how rich, varied, and significant is the message 
of the sonnet. 

My choice will, doubtless, not meet the approval of any 
one person, but wherever my judgment is questioned and 
my sins of commission and omission are condemned, there 
must necessarily be comparison and discussion; and this will 
inevitably further intelligence regarding the sonnet and 
stimulate interest in its poetry, which is the chief end and 
purpose of this little book. 

Many of these sonnets are from books copyrighted by 
Houghton Mifflin Company; others are reprinted by cour- 
teous permission of various pubhshers. A conscientious effort 
has been made to search out the holders of all copyrights, 
and it is hoped that no acknowledgments have unintention- 
ally been omitted. 

Laura E. Lockwood. 



INTRODUCTION 

FORM 

The word ''sonnet" is derived from the Italian suono, 
sound, with the diminutive suffix added; its meaning is, 
then, "a Uttle sound." This term was clearer to the Italians, 
from whom we borrowed the poem, than it is to us, for they 
were in the habit of accompanying tliis form of verse with 
music. Petrarch sang his own sonnets to the sound of the 
lute, and it was not unusual to hear the minstrels sing- 
ing them from street to street. Indeed, the Italians hardly 
thought of the sonnet except as accompanied by music. 

The rules for the composition of the sonnet have been 
fixed by the acceptance and practice of the best writers; an- 
other kind of lyric may choose its number of feet to the line, 
or lines to the stanza, but the sonnet must have fourteen 
lines and no more, must have five beats to each line, neither 
fewer nor greater in number. It was not, however, to the 
Italians any poem of fourteen five-stress lines, the subject 
being expanded according to the caprice of the poet; on the 
contrary, it should have, if it were a regular sonnet,^ a clear 
and unified theme, stated in the first quatrain, developed or 
proved in the second, confirmed or regarded from a new point 
of view in the first tercet, and concluded in the second tercet. 
It had thus four parts, divided unevenly into two separate 
systems, eight lines being devoted to placing the thought 
before the mind, and six to deducing the conclusion from 
that thought. 

This division was made clearer by the use of pause and 
rhyme. There were three times when the poet should pause, 

* There were also tailed sonnets, with short-lined stanzas following ; iterating 
sonnets, having only one or two rhymes; interwoven sonnets, in which words in 
the middle of the lines rhymed as well as those at the end; and several other 
forms. 



INTRODUCTION 

after having given a definite phase of his subject, before he 
presented it in a new and brighter hght. The pauses were 
thus a logical part of the plan to show a theme unfolding in 
a clear, yet prescribed way; they were not used merely for 
the sake of pause, or just to make the poem appear neater, 
but as transition that would render the logic more apparent. 
Moreover, the rigid rhyme scheme aided this use of pause 
in the careful blocking out of thought. The quatrains, 
abbaabba, were alike and held together by the repeating 
a, yet kept apart by the definite unity of pattern in each; 
thus emphasizing the separation and the similarity of state- 
ment and proof. The confirmation and conclusion, however, 
must be still further set apart by a new rhyme scheme, nei- 
ther reproducing nor suggesting the succession of sounds in 
the quatrain; the new scheme did not, indeed, admit any of 
the rhyming letters " allowed in the quatrains, and it pre- 
scribed another and different arrangement of rhymes. The 
favorite order of the sestet was, cdecde or cdcdcd; but 
here much license was allowed in the placing of rhymes. 
The rhyming of the last two lines w^as in general avoided; 
both Dante and Petrarch in a few instances tried this closing 
rhyme, but evidently considered it unsuitable because it 
would divide the lines from the rest of the sonnet and give 
them a peculiar significance that might detract from the 
perfect unity of the whole. 

The aim and desire of the great Italian writers was that 
the sonnet should close leaving the reader with the sense of 
finish and completeness, with the feeling of having been 
given the thought in its full relation and also its final result. 
It must not, therefore, v/ork up steadily from the first fine to 
a climax at the last line, for then no conclusion or conse- 
quence was possible; nor must it be developed through 
twelve lines, to be finished off with an epigrammatic turn of 
thought in the last two lines, since this was merely to startle 
or surprise the mind of the reader. 

No feeble or obscure fine could be allowed to stand, and no 
important word should be used twice, unless such repetition 
were necessary for some peculiar effect. The utmost econ- 

vi 



INTRODUCTION 

omy must be practiced, if the poet was to present his thought 
entire and in a convincing, satisfying manner. Such were 
the exacting laws which the greatest ItaUan poets sought to 
follow in their efforts to create a perfect sonnet. 

This does not mean that the laws were absolute and that 
the poets made no experiments, but comparatively few 
irregular sonnets from the well-known ^Titers remain to tes- 
tify the search for another form. Out of 327 written by Pe- 
trarch, 310 follow the quatrain rhyme scheme as given above, 
and 301 conform to either the first or the second plan for 
the sestet. 

Our earliest writers, Wyatt and Surrey, accepted the dic- 
tum of the Italians as far as number of lines and of feet to 
the line, but experimented with rhyme. Wyatt almost al- 
ways follows Petrarch in the octave; the sestet he closes with 
a rhymed couplet. Surrey was less easily satisfied on the 
delicate subject of rhyme; he never employs the Italian 
rhyme scheme, but usually has three quatrains in alternate 
rhyme with a couplet at the close, or he uses six alternate 
rhymes with one of these forming the closing couplet; some- 
times again a new rhyme appears in the last two lines. 
These two pioneers consistently employed the closing coup- 
let, which shows that they either had not grasped the rela- 
tion of rhyme to thought in the Italian scheme, or consid- 
ered another arrangement better adapted to the English 
language. 

Since the century of Wyatt and Surrey, the best of our 
English poets have established by use the canon of fourteen 
five-stress lines as essential to the sonnet; they have made 
still further experiments with rhyme. Many combinations 
and variations of rhyme schemes have been tried. Three 
clear types have, however, predominated: that modeled on 
the form of Petrarch, the octave abbaahha, and two 
or three new rhymes variously arranged in the sestet; that 
devised by Surrey, but usually called after Shakespeare 
since his sonnets are the most famous composed in this form, 
abah cdcdefefg g; and that contrived by Spenser, abab 
hcbccdcdee, which has had fewer followers than the other 



INTRODUCTION 

two and at present is not often used. The English sonnet 
composed on one of these patterns may, then, have four, 
five, six, or seven rhymes, but of these three prevaihng types 
there have been and are still many modifications. For ex- 
ample : Shelley's Ozymandias, Hallam's Written in Edinburgh, 
Dobell's The Army Surgeon, and Rupert Brooke's The Sol- 
dier. Since, however, the sonnet is a poem deriving part of 
its charm and power from the fact that the form is conven- 
tional and familiar to the ear of the reader, no one of these 
erratic rhyme schemes has found many followers. The mod- 
ern sonnet remains, with few exceptions, loyal to the scheme 
of Petrarch or to that of Shakespeare. ^ 

As far as the manner of developing the thought is con- 
cerned we have three distinct methods in English. The son- 
net may, as the Petrarchian sonnet usually does, begin and 
grow to a climax at the end of the eighth line, closing quietly 
through the following six lines in a natural sequence of 
thought; secondly, it may be presented by three different 
statements of the idea, which is the way Shakespeare builds 
his sonnets, and close with a two-line application, conclusion, 
or proof; or, lastly, the thought may run over from the oc- 
tave into the sestet, and the break come, if there is any break 
at all, later in the poem. Milton was the first to construct 
sonnets according to this third plan; Wordsworth and later 
poets very often follow his example. Whichever scheme is 
adopted, rhyme and pause should be used to interpret and 
support the plan of thought development, and in the best 
sonnets this is always the case. But the English poets, lov- 
ing to play with this little musical instrument of the sonnet, 
have experimented as often in ways of unfolding the thought 
as in the manner of arranging the rhymes. 

HISTOKY 

The complexity of the sonnet form would lead one to sup- 
pose a long period of experimentation before the laws were 
evolved, settled, and accepted by poets as a convention not 

* For the reason of this loyalty, see the discussion by Watts in Encyclopcedia 
Britannica (9th edition), vol. xxii, p. 262. 

viii 



INTRODUCTION 

to be violated. Although this was in all probability the case, 
there is a very incomplete record of such tentative feeUng 
after form. Among the earliest known examples occur those 
with the same number of lines and of feet to the line, as well 
as something of the same rhyme and pause scheme, as are 
found in the sonnet at the height of its popularity. Its origin, 
then, becomes a matter for the labor, or the skillful guessing, 
of the scholar, a question still of much controversy and of 
apparently impossible solution. Several theories have been 
advanced, each having its supporters among students of 
Italian literature. 

Some hold that the sonnet is a development of the Greek 
epigram.^ However, the more commonly defended theories 
are: first, that the Italian singers borrowed the form, or some- 
thing approximate to it, from the Provengal troubadours,^ 
and this thesis has been warmly supported, especially by the 
French critics; secondly, that the sonnet came to birth in 
Italy itself or at least in Sicily.^ Those who contend that 
Sicily is to be accorded the fame of creating this form of 
poem argue that the poets evolved it by working upon Arabic 
models at the court of WiUiam II of Sicily (1166-89), whose 
devotion to Arab literature made his court a center of that 
study, and that it continued to flourish at the court of his 
successor, Frederick II (1189-1250). Other critics are as 
firmly convinced that Tuscany or central Italy should have 
the honor, but they divide themselves into two camps as 
regards the source poem out of which the sonnet grew. The 
one group attempt to show that it resulted from a combina- 
tion of two short love-lyrics, called stromhotti; ^ the octave 
was originally the eight-line strombotto, rhyming ah ah ah ah 
and the sestet the six-line strombotto with rhyme, c d c d c d. 
These two the poets combined, varying the line and chang- 
ing four feet to five, and thus produced the sonnet. The 

* William Sharp, Sonnets of the Nineteenth Century, p. xxxi. 

* Sidney Lee, Elizabethan Sonnets (London, 1904), vol. i, p. xiii. M. Louis 
de Vayrieres, Monographic du Sonnet (Paris, 1869). 

3 Francesco Trucchi, Poesie italiane (Prato, 1846), pp. xxvi-xxx. Heinrich 
Welti, Geschichte des Sonnettes (Leipzig, 1884), pp. 1-54. 

* Tommaso Casini, Le Forme metriche italiana (Firenze, 1890), pp. 35-38. 
Charles Tomlinson, The Sonnet (London, 1874), pp. 7-29. 

ix 



INTRODUCTION 

other group hold that it was modeled on one of the stanzas 
of a love-song, called a canzone.^ These popular songs were 
constructed in many ways; one of the forms frequently used 
may have been the source of the sonnet, as the lines of the 
stanza were fourteen and the rhyme scheme similar to that 
later used by the sonnetteers. For example, the stanzas of a 
canzone by Guittone d' Arezzo rhyme abbaabbaaccadd. 
The octave is here ready-made in form, and the sestet suffers 
only change of rhyme. There are strong arguments for, as 
well as against, both the Italian and the Proven gal origin of 
the sonnet, but no critic has as yet adduced convincing proof 
to establish the claims of either country. 

Practically all critics are agreed, whatever theory of origin 
they hold, that the earliest known writers were Ludovico 
della Vernaccia (about 1200), Giacomo da Lentino (about 
1210), and Piero delle Vigne (1181?-1249); and that Guit- 
tone d' Arezzo (1220-94) was the first poet who composed 
a sonnet in the form later approved and accepted by the 
Italian writers. The sonnet rapidly became popular in Italy, 
was used with great skill by Dante, and brought to the height 
of its perfection by Petrarch. 

"Whatever its origin in land or poem, Pattison is certainly 
right when he says, ''The sonnet — both thing and name — 
comes to us from the Itahan." ^ And it came not by accident 
or unconscious imitation, but brought by the poets Thomas 
Wyatt (1503-1642) and the Earl of Surrey (1515-47), with 
the definite purpose of introducing it into England. They 
had traveled in Italy and fallen under the spell of Petrarch; 
returning to England, they set about a reform of English 
literature. Puttenham tells us: " They greatly polished our 
rude and homely maner of vulgar Poesie, from that it had 
been before, and for that cause may justly be said the first 
reformers of our English metre and stile." ^ The low estate 
of English poetry is clear when such rough lines and poor 
rhymes as those of Wyatt were considered a reformation. 

i Mary Bowen, Influence of Petrarch upon the Elizabethan Sonnet. Unpub- 
lished Thesis. 

2 Mark Pattison, The Sonnets of John Milton (London, 1883). 
8 Arber Reprints (London, 1869), vol. 7, p. 74. 



INTRODUCTION 

The lines are, indeed, often little better than stumbling 
prose. The subject is love, exercising itself in extravagant 
praise of bodily beauty, and profuse complaint at the fair 
one's unreasoning coldness and indifference. In his other 
poetry, Wyatt can be simple and sincere, but in the sonnets 
he is usually paraphrasing, or attempting to translate di- 
rectly, the work of Petrarch, and with difficulty endeavoring 
to maintain the emotional fervor of his master. Surrey, deal- 
ing generally with the same personal themes, is more musical, 
has a better command of line, a more graceful and pleasing 
diction. The work of these poets, done between 1530 and 
1540, was not published until 1557, in TotteVs Miscellany. 
This book appears to have been popular, but, strange to say, 
few poets sought to imitate the new form of verse. 

At this time in France a group of writers, calling them- 
selves the Pleiade, under the leadership of Ronsard and Du 
Bellay, set about vigorously the complete reformation of 
French literature. Their assertion was that French, being 
crude in thought and form, could be elevated only by an 
imitation of Greek, Latin, and Italian models; hence one of 
the favorite tasks of these poets was the translation, para- 
phrase, or imitation of the Italian sonnets, especially those 
written by Petrarch. This work, carried on with vigor from 
about 1550 to the death of Ronsard in 1584, had a great influ- 
ence in England, where the educated read chiefly French 
books. 

English thought, under the stimulus of French enthusiasm, 
turned again to Italy, and the sonnet soon became the popu- 
lar form in England. Each of the poets, there being so many 
of them that Ben Jonson says the name of poet became a 
term of contempt, tried his hand at it. He not only wrote 
one or a dozen, but he generally composed a sequence of a 
hundred or a list approaching that perfect number. Thou- 
sands upon thousands of sonnets were written, almost al- 
ways on the subject of love, the poets seeking, either ser- 
vilely or reverently, to follow in the footsteps of Petrarch. 
They succeeded, however, in most cases, in reproducing only 
the extravagant love-praise and suffering, but failed to attain 



INTRODUCTION 

the beauty of language and sincerity of emotion that made 
Petrarch's sonnets Hve. Yet there is a fascination about the 
wailing sorrows and the glowing praises of Lodge for Phillis, 
Fletcher for Licia, Daniel for Delia, Percy for Coelia, Dray- 
ton for Idea, Griffin for Fidessa, Smith for Chloris, Sidney for 
Stella, and Spenser for his "soverayne saynt." The world 
seems very young, very fresh, and full of harmless feeling for 
beauty and love. One somehow senses the beauty as real and 
discounts the pain as only a means of enhancing the loveli- 
ness. The sonnets range in poetic grace and emotional sin- 
cerity from the happiest creations of Sidney and Spenser to 
the half-indifferent exercises of Drayton or the banalities of 
Smith and Griffin. They are, to be sure, in most cases only 
paraphrases of Petrarch or his French imitators, — this Sid- 
ney Lee has clearly shown us, — nevertheless, we like the 
poets who follow so ardently, as a child his toy, their ideal 
of shining eyes and glowing cheeks. 

Shakespeare writes, too, a sequence of sonnets, and he is 
of and not of this group of lovers who praise and blame 
their mistresses. Despite all the attempts to find the lady or 
friend, or both, of his sonnets, the mystery of their meaning 
has never been satisfactorily solved, yet it is clear that 
Shakespeare does the same thing his contemporaries are 
doing, only he does it superlatively well, with far greater 
power of thought, delicacy of sentiment, and sweetness of 
music. But the number of really great sonnets from his pen 
is small; the faults of the time in repetition, involved sen- 
tences, and extravagant emotion, mar the most of his son- 
nets. His best are among the best of all literature, yet they 
are comparatively few in number. 

With the beginning of the seventeenth century the sonnet- 
eering vogue had somewhat spent its force, and Puritanism 
began to frown more sternly upon all such idle vanities as 
praise of ladies' beauty. William Drummond, "the Scottish 
Petrarch" and disciple of Spenser, writes sonnets to his lady 
which are free from glorification of physical charm and full 
of that which the Puritan sanctioned, religious melancholy 
and prayer for resignation. They are simpler in language, 

xii 



INTRODUCTION 

with fewer elaborate figures, and less repetition than have the 
earlier sonnets; they lack, however, freshness and vigor of 
imagination. Milton, a httle later, takes time from the stren- 
uous business of state to write now and then a sonnet. His 
sonnets begin in English a new type, a new standard of fash- 
ioning this difficult poem. With one exception, each stands 
by itself, unconnected with those that precede or follow, 
and only one deals with that favorite subject of love. Milton 
uses the sonnet for expressing his thought regarding people 
or events, as a way of estimating character, praising deeds, 
or seeking to stimulate men to action. He combines this 
freer scope of subject-matter with great simpHcity of struc- 
ture and diction, composing his sonnets without adornment 
and his sentences to read almost as clearly as prose. Like 
Shakespeare, however, Milton writes few of the highest qual- 
ity, not because of imperfect form or faulty subject-matter, 
but because he is in only a few cases so deeply moved by his 
theme that emotion makes the lines glow with a compelling 
vividness and beauty. Before Milton, the sonnet had been 
sometimes dignified, occasionally simple and sincere, in many 
cases passionate; yet rarely before his work had these qual- 
ities been combined in the same sonnet. 

The eighteenth century found its mode of expression in the 
freer ode, the satire, the more pointed epigram, and the elegy. 
Very few essayed the sonnet and still fewer, as Cowper in one 
instance, succeeded in writing sonnets of worth. Gray in 
1742 wrote his one sonnet, formal, artificial, correct, and 
classical. Thomas Warton wrote nine; not one of which at- 
tains anything hke the simplicity we find in Milton, or the 
grace by which Spenser dehghts us. It is not until 1789, 
when William Lisles Bowles published his little book of four- 
teen sonnets, that the sonnet becomes again the medium 
through which the poet speaks simply and plainly his indi- 
vidual thoughts and emotions. Bowles followed Milton's 
practice in avoiding love-themes and in making each sonnet 
a unit by itself. Coleridge was enthusiastic over the work of 
this author, beginning his own sonnet with "My heart has 
thank'd thee, Bowles," and again remarking, "Surely never 



INTRODUCTION 

was a writer so equal in excellence." * This praise did much to 
make these sonnets known and read. 

It was, however, Wordsworth who re-created and re-digni- 
fied the sonnet; he loved and defended it against its detrac- 
tors, using it separately and in sequence for the expression of 
philosophy, religion, social reform, nature, friendship, and 
the common events of family life. Like Milton, he gives the 
sentence structure the simplicity and directness of prose, and 
at his best develops the thought within the rigid bounds of the 
sonnet as easily and naturally as in conversation. Most writ- 
ers since have striven for this ideal, which lets the thought 
reveal itself without the obvious show of complexly unrolling 
phrases. Wordsworth, in his defense and his practice, as- 
sured the acceptance of the sonnet by the Romantic School, 
with which begins its renaissance and its popularity among 
modern poets. These two writers, Milton and Wordsworth, 
so stamped the sonnet that in manner it has changed little 
since, only gaining new poetic fervor with Keats and Rossetti 
and Mrs. Browning; in subject, it has become possibly more 
flexible, lending itself equally as well to the old subject of 
intimate love as to that of the impersonal criticism of church 
and state, and to themes all the way between these two. 

» The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Macmillan & Company, 
1895), p. 40. 



ENGLISH SONNETS 

THE DESERTED LOVER CONSOLETH HIMSELF 

Divers doth use, as I have heard and know, 

When that to change their ladies do begin, 

To mourn, and wail, and never for to lynn; 

Hoping thereby to 'pease their painful woe. 

And some there be that when it chanceth so 

That women change, and hate where love hath been, 

They call them false, and think with words to win 

The hearts of them which otherwhere doth grow. 

But as for me, though that by chance indeed 

Change hath outworn the favour that I had, 

I will not wail, lament, nor yet be sad, 

Nor call her false that falsely did me feed; 

But let it pass, and think it is of kind 

That often change doth please a woman's mind. 

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1 503 f -1642), 

THE LOVER DESPAIRING TO ATTAIN 

Whoso list to hunt? I know where is an hind! 
But as for me, alas! I may no more. 
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore; 
I am of them that furthest come behind. 
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind 
Draw from the deer; but as she fleeth afore 
Fainting I follow; I leave off therefore, 
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind. 
Who list to hunt, I put him out of doubt 
As well as I, may spend his time in vain! 
And graven with diamonds in letters plain 
There is written her fair neck round about; 
"Noli me tangere; for Caesar's I am, 
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame." 

Sir Thomas Wyatt. 
1 



A VOW TO LOVE FAITHFULLY 

Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green, 
Or where his beams do not dissolve the ice; 
In temperate heat, where he is felt and seen; 
In presence prest of people, mad or wise; 
Set me in high, or yet in low degree; 
In longest night, or in the shortest day; 
In clearest sky, or where clouds thickest be; 
In lusty youth, or when my hairs are gray: 
Set me in heav'n, in earth, or else in hell, 
In hill, or dale, or in the foaming flood; 
Thrall, or at large, alive whereso I dwell. 
Sick, or in health, in evil fame, or good. 
Hers will I be; and only with this thought 
Content myself, although my chance be nought. 
Earl of Surrey {1517 f-mi). 



DESCRIPTION OF SPRING 

The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings 
With green hath clad the hill, and eke the vale. 
The nightingale with feathers new she sings: 
The turtle to her mate hath told her tale.^ 
Summer is come, for every spray now springs, 
The hart hath hung his old head on the pale; 
The buck in brake his winter coat he shngs; 
The fishes flete with new repaired scale; 
The adder all her slough away she slings; 
The swift swallow pursueth the flies smale; 
The busy bee her honey now she mings; 
Winter is worn that was the flowers' bale. 
And thus I see among these pleasant things 
Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs! 

Earl of Surrey. 



AMORETTI 

XXII 

This holy season, fit to fast and pray, 

Men to devotion ought to be inclined: 

Therefore, I likewise, on so holy day, 

For my sweet Saint some service fit will find. 

Her temple fair is built within my mind, 

In which her glorious image placed is; 

On which my thoughts do day and night attend. 

Like sacred priests that never think amiss! 

There I to her, as th' author of my bliss. 

Will build an altar to appease her ire; 

And on the same my heart will sacrifice. 

Burning in flames of pure and chaste desire: 

The which vouchsafe, goddess, to accept, 

Among thy dearest relics to be kept. 

Edmund Spenser {15521-1599). 



XL 

Mark when she smiles with amiable cheer, 
And tell me whereto can ye liken it; 
When on each eyelid sweetly do appear 
An hundred Graces as in shade to sit. 
Likest it seemeth, in my simple wit. 
Unto the fair sunshine in summer's day; 
That, when a dreadful storm away is flit, 
Through the broad world doth spread his goodly ray; 
At sight whereof, each bird that sits on spray, 
And every beast that to his den was fled. 
Comes forth afresh out of their late dismay. 
And to the light hft up their drooping head. 
So my storm-beaten heart likewise is cheered 
With that sunshine, when cloudy looks are cleared. 

Edmund Spenser. 

3 



LXVII 

Like as a huntsman after weary chase, 
Seeing the game from him escaped away. 
Sits down to rest him in some shady place, 
With panting hounds beguilM of their prey: 
So, after long pursuit and vain assay, 
When I all weary had the chase forsook, 
The gentle deer returned the self-same way, 
Thinking to quench her thirst at the next brook: 
There she, beholding me with milder look, 
Sought not to fly, but fearless still did bide; 
Till I in hand her yet half trembling took, 
And with her own good will her firmly tied. 
Strange thing, me seemed, to see a beast so wild, 
So goodly won, with her own will beguiled. 

Edmund Spenser. 



LXVIII 

Most glorious Lord of life! that, on this day, 

Didst make thy triumph over death and sin; 

And, having harrowed hell, didst bring away 

Captivity thence captive, us to win: 

This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin; 

And grant that we, for whom thou diddest die. 

Being with thy dear blood clean washed from sin, 

May live forever in felicity; 

And that thy love we weighing worthily. 

May likewise love thee for the same again; 

And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy, 

With love may one another entertain! 

So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought: 

Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught. 

Edmund Spenser, 



LXXV 

One day I wrote her name upon the strand, 
But came the waves, and washed it away: 
Again I wrote it with a second hand; 
But came the tide, and made my pains his pray. 

**Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain essay 
A mortal thing so to immortahze; 
For I myself shall like to this decay, 
And eek my name be wip^d out likewise." 

"Not so," quod I; "let baser things devise 
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: 
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize. 
And in the heavens write your glorious name. 
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue, 
Our love shall live, and later life renew." 

Edmund Spenser, 



A VISION UPON THE CONCEIT OF THE 
FAERY QUEEN 

Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay, 
Within that Temple where the vestal flame 
Was wont to burn; and passing by that way 
To see that buried dust of Uving fame. 
Whose tomb fair love, and fairer virtue kept, 
All suddenly I saw the Faery Queen: 
At whose approach the soul of Petrarch wept, 
And from thenceforth those graces were not seen; 
For they this Queen attended, in whose stead 
Oblivion laid him down on Laura's hearse. 
Hereat the hardest stones were seen to bleed. 
And groans of buried ghosts the heavens did pierce: 
Where Homer's spright did tremble all for grief. 
And cursed the access of that celestial thief. 

Sir Walter Raleigh {1552?-1618), 



ASTROPHEL AND STELLA 

XXXI 

With how sad steps, Moon! thou dimb'st the skies! 

How silently, and with how wan a face! 

What, may it be that even in heavenly place 

That busy archer his sharp arrows tries! 

Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes 

Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case; 

I read it in thy looks: thy languished grace, 

To me, that feel the like, thy state descries. 

Then, even of fellowship, Moon, tell me. 

Is constant love deemed there but want of wit? 

Are beauties there as proud as here they be? 

Do they above love to be loved, and yet 

Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess? — 

Do they call virtue there ungratefulness? 

Sir Philip Sidney {1554-1586). 



XXXIX 

Come Sleep! Sleep, the certain knot of peace. 
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe, 
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release. 
The indifferent judge between the high and low; 
With shield of proof shield me from out the prease 
Of those fierce darts Despair at me doth throw: 

make in me those civil wars to cease; 

1 will good tribute pay, if thou do so. 

Take thou of me smooth pillows, sweetest bed, 
A chamber deaf of noise and blind of light, 
A rosy garland and a weary head: 
And if these things, as being thine by right. 
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me, 
Liveher than elsewhere, Stella's image see. 

Sir Philip Sidney, 



XLI 

Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance 
Guided so well that I obtained the prize, 
Both by the judgment of the EngUsh eyes 
And of some sent from that sweet enemy, France; 
Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance; 
Town folks my strength; a daintier judge appHes 
His praise to sleight, which from good use doth rise; 
Some lucky wits impute it but to chance; 
Others, because of both sides I do take 
My blood from them who did excel in this, 
Think Nature me a man-at-arms did make. 
How far they shot awry! The true cause is, 
Stella looked on; and from her heavenly face 
Sent forth the beams which made so fan- my race. 

Sir Philip Sidney, 



LEAVE ME, LOVE, WHICH REACHEST 
BUT TO DUST 

Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust, 
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things; 
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust: 
Whatever fades but fading pleasure brings. 
Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might 
To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be. 
Which breaks the clouds and opens forth the light 
That doth both shine and give us sight to see. 
Oh, take fast hold! let that light be thy guide 
In this small course which birth draws out to death, 
And think how evil becometh him to slide 
Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath. 
Then farewell, world; thy uttermost I see: 
Eternal Love, maintain thy life in me. 

Sir Philip Sidney, 



PHILLIS 

XXII 

Fair art thou, Phillis, ay, so fair, sweet maid, 

As nor the sun, nor I have seen more fair; 

For in thy cheeks sweet roses are embayed, 

And gold more pure than gold doth gild thy hair. 

Sweet bees have hived their honey on thy tongue, 

And Hebe spiced her nectar with thy breath; 

About thy neck do all the graces throng, 

And lay such baits as might entangle death. 

In such a breast what heart would not be thrall? 

From such sweet arms who would not wish embraces? 

At thy fair hands who wonders not at all 

Wonder itself through ignorance embases? 

Yet natheless though wondrous gifts you call these. 

My faith is far more wonderful than all these. 

Thomas Lodge {1558f-1625). 



WHAT MEANT THE POETS IN INVECTIVE 
VERSE 

What meant the poets in invective verse 

To sing Medea's shame, and Scylla's pride, 

Calypso's charms by which so many died? 

Only for this their vices they rehearse; 

That curious wits which in the world converse, 

May shun the dangers and enticing shows 

Of such false Sirens, those home-breeding foes. 

That from their eyes their venom do disperse. 

So soon kills not the basilisk with sight; 

The viper's tooth is not so venomous; 

The adder's tongue not half so dangerous. 

As they that bear the shadow of delight, 

Who chain blind youths in trammels of their hair. 

Till waste brings woe, and sorrow hastes despair. 

Robert Greene {1560 f-1592) . 

8 



DIANA 

IX 

My lady's presence makes the Roses red, 
Because to see her lips they blush for shame. 
The Lily's leaves, for envy, pale became; 
And her white hands in them this envy bred. 
The Marigold abroad her leaves doth spread, 
Because the sun's and her power is the same. 
The Violet of purple colour came. 
Dyed with the blood she made my heart to shed. 
In brief, all flowers from her their virtue take; 
From her sweet breath, their sweet smells do proceed; 
The living heat which her eye-beams do make 
Warmeth the ground, and quickeneth the seed. 
The rain wherewith she watereth these flowers. 
Falls from mine eyes, which she dissolves in showers. 
Henry Constable (1662-1613). 



DELIA 



Beauty, sweet Love, is like the morning dew, 
Whose short refresh upon the tender green 
Cheers for a time but till the sun doth shew, 
And straight 't is gone as it had never been. 
Soon doth it fade that makes the fairest flourish. 
Short is the glory of the blushing rose; 
The hue which thou so carefully dost nourish, 
Yet which at length thou must be forced to lose- 
When thou, surcharged with burthen of thy years, 
Shalt bend thy wrinkles homeward to the earth. 
And that in Beauty's lease, expired, appears 
The date of Age, the calends of our death, — 
But ah, no more! — this must not be foretold, 
For women grieve to think they must be old. 

Samuel Daniel {1562-1619). 

9 



CARE-CHARMER SLEEP, SON OF THE 
SABLE NIGHT 

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night, 
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born, 
Relieve my languish, and restore the hght; 
With dark forgetting of my care return, 
And let the day be time enough to mourn 
The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth: 
Let waking eyes suffice to wail their scorn, 
Without the torment of the night's untruth. 
Cease, dreams, the images of the day-desires, 
To model forth the passions of the morrow; 
Never let rising Sun approve you liars, 
To add more grief to aggravate my sorrow: 
Still let me sleep, embracing clouds in vain, 
And never wake to feel the day's disdain. 

Samuel Daniel. 



WERE I AS BASE AS IS THE LOWLY PLAIN 

Were I as base as is the lowly plain, 
And you, my Love, as high as heaven above, 
Yet should the thoughts of me your humble swain 
Ascend to heaven in honour of my Love. 
Were I as high as heaven above the plain, 
And you, my Love, as humble and as low 
As are the deepest bottoms of the main, 
Whereso'er you were, with you my love should go. 
Were you the earth, dear Love, and I the skies. 
My love should shine on you like to the sun. 
And look upon you with ten thousand eyes. 
Till heaven waxed blind, and till the world were done. 
Whereso'er I am, below or else above you, 
Whereso'er you are, my heart shall truly love you. 
Joshuah Sylvester (1563-1618), 

10 



IDEA 

IV 

Bright Star of Beauty! on whose Eyelids sit 

A thousand nymph-like and enamoured Graces, 

The Goddesses of Memory and Wit, 

Which there in order take their several places. 

In whose dear Bosom, sweet delicious Love 

Lays down his quiver, which he once did bear, 

Since he that blessed Paradise did prove. 

And leaves his mother's lap to sport him there. 

Let others strive to entertain with words! 

My soul is of a braver metal made: 

I hold that vile which vulgar wit affords, 

In me 's that faith which Time cannot invade! 

Let what I praise be still made good by you 

Be you most worthy, whilst I am most true. 

Michael Drayton (1563-1631). 



LXXI 

Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part, — 

Nay I have done, you get no more of me: 

And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart, 

That thus so cleanly I myself can free: 

Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows. 

And when we meet at any time again. 

Be it not seen in either of our brows 

That we one jot of former love retain. 

Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath, 

When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies. 

When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death. 

And Innocence is closing up his eyes, — 

Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, 

From death to life thou mighst him yet recover! 

Michael Drayton, 

11 



SONNETS 

XVIII 

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 
Thou art more lovely and more temperate: 
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, 
And summer's lease hath all too short a date: 
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, 
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; 
And every fair from fair sometime declines, 
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; 
But thy eternal sununer shall not fade, 
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; 
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade. 
When in eternal Unes to time thou grow'st: 
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see. 
So long this lives, and this gives life to thee. 

William Shakespeare (1564-1616). 



XXIX 

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, 
I all alone beweep my outcast state, 
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, 
And look upon myself, and curse my fate. 
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, 
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possessed. 
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope. 
With what I most enjoy contented least; 
Yet in these'thoughts myself almost despising. 
Haply I think on thee, and then my state. 
Like to the lark at break of day arising 
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; 
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings 
That then I scorn to change my state with kings. 

William Shakespeare. 

12 



XXX 

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 

I summon up remembrance of things past, 

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste: 

Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow. 

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, 

And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, 

And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: 

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, 

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er 

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, 

Which I new pay as if not paid before. 

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, 

All losses are restored and sorrows end. 

William Shakespeare. 



XXXIII 

Full many a glorious morning have I seen 
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, 
Kissing with golden face the meadows green, 
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy; 
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride 
With ugly rack on his celestial face, 
And from the forlorn world his visage hide, 
Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace: 
Even so my sun one early morn did shine 
With all- triumphant splendour on my brow; 
But, out, alack! he was but one hour mine. 
The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now. 
Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth; 
Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun 
staineth. 

William Shakespeare, 
13 



LV 

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments 

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme? 

But you shall shine more bright in these contents 

Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time. 

When wasteful war shall statues overturn, 

And broils root out the work of masonry, 

Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn 

The living record of your memory. 

'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity 

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room 

Even in the eyes of all posterity 

That wear this world out to the ending doom. 

So, till the judgment that yourself arise, 

You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes. 

William Shakespeare, 



LXXI 

No longer mourn for me when I am dead 
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell 
Give warning to the world that I am fled 
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell: 
Nay, if you read this line, remember not 
The hand that writ it; for I love you so. 
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, , 
If thinking on me then should make you woe. 
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse 
When I perhaps compounded am with clay. 
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse. 
But let your love even with my life decay; 
Lest the wise world should look into your moan. 
And mock you with me after I am gone. 

William Shakespeare. 



14 



LXXIII 

That time of year thou mayst in me behold 

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, 

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. 

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day 

As after sunset fadeth in the west; 

Which by and by black night doth take away, 

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. 

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire, 

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, 

As the death-bed whereon it must expire, 

Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by. 

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, 

To love that well which thou must leave ere long. 

William Shakespeare. 



XGVIII 

From you have I been absent in the spring, 

When proud-pied April, dress'd in all his trim. 

Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing. 

That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him. 

Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell 

Of different flowers in odour and in hue, 

Could make me any summer's story tell, 

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew: 

Nor did I wonder at the lily's white. 

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; 

They were but sweet, but figures of delight, 

Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. 

Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away. 

As with your shadow I with these did play. 

William Shakespeare. 

15 



CII 

My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in 

seeming; 
I love not less, though less the show appear: 
That love is merchandized whose rich esteeming 
The owner's tongue doth publish every where. 
Our love was new, and then but in the spring. 
When I was wont to greet it with my lays; 
As Philomel in summer's front doth sing. 
And stops her pipe in growth of riper days: 
Not that the summer is less pleasant now 
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night, 
But that wild music burthens every bough. 
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight. 
Therefore, like her, I sometime hold my tongue, 
Because I would not dull you with my song. 

William Shakespeare, 



CVI 

When in the chronicle of wasted time 

I see descriptions of the fairest wights, 

And beauty making beautiful old rhyme 

In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights, 

Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, 

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, 

I see their antique pen would have express'd 

Even such a beauty as you master now. 

So all their praises are but prophecies 

Of this our time, all you prefiguring; 

And, for they look'd but with divining eyes, 

They had not skill enough your worth to sing: 

For we, which now behold these present days. 

Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise. 

William Shakespeare. 



16 



CXVI 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
Admit impediments. Love is not love 
Which alters when it alteration finds, 
Or bends with the remover to remove: 

no! it is an ever-fixed mark, 

That looks on tempests and is never shaken; 

It is the star to every wandering bark. 

Whose worth 's unknown, although his height be taken. 

Love 's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 

Within his bending sickle's compass come; 

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 

But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 

If this be error and upon me prov'd, 

1 never writ, nor no man ever lov'd. 

William Shakespeare, 



CXXIX 

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame 

Is lust in action; and till action, lust 

Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, 

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; 

Enjoy 'd no sooner but despised straight; 

Past reason hunted; and no sooner had. 

Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait, 

On purpose laid to make the taker mad: 

Mad in pursuit, and in possession so; 

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme; 

A bhss in proof, and proved, a very woe; 

Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream. 

All this the world well knows; yet none knows well 

To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell. 

William Shakespeare. 

17 



AH, SWEET CONTENT! WHERE IS THY 
MILD ABODE? 

Ah, sweet Content! where is thy mild abode? 
Is it with Shepherds and light-hearted Swains, 
Which sing upon the downs, and pipe abroad. 
Tending their flocks and cattle on the plains? 
Ah, sweet Content! where dost thou safely rest? 
In heaven, with angels? which the praises sing 
Of Him that made, and rules at His behest. 
The minds and hearts of every living thing. 
Ah, sweet Content! where doth thine harbour hold? 
Is it in churches with religious men. 
Which please the gods with prayers manifold. 
And in then- studies meditate it then? 
Whether thou dost in heaven or earth appear. 
Be where thou wilt, thou will not harbour here! 

Barnabe Barnes {1569 f -1609). 



AT THE ROUND EARTH'S IMAGINED 
CORNERS BLOW 

At the round earth's imagined corners blow 

Your trumpets. Angels, and arise, arise, 

From death, you numberless infinities 

Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go. 

All whom the Flood did, and Fire shall, overthrow, 

All whom war, dearth, age, agues, tyrannies, 

Despair, law, chance, hath slain, and you whose eyes 

Shall behold God, and never taste death's woe. 

But let them sleep. Lord, and me mourn a space; 

For, if above all these, my sins abound 

'T is late to ask abundance of Thy grace. 

When we are there. Here on this lowly ground 

Teach me how to repent; for that's as good 

As if Thou'dst sealed my pardon with thy blood. 

John Donne (1573-1631). 
18 



DEATH, BE NOT PROUD, THOUGH SOME 
HAVE CALLED THEE 

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee 

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; 

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow 

Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me. 

Prom rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be. 

Much pleasure; then from thee, much more must flow: 

And soonest our best men do with thee go; 

Rest of their bones and soul's deUvery! 

Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, Kings, and desperate 

men. 
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell. 
And poppy or charmes can make us sleep as well, 
And better than thy stroke; why swelFst thou then? 
One short sleep past, we wake eternally, 
And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die. 

John Donne. 



I KNOW THAT ALL BENEATH THE MOON 
DECAYS 

I KNOW that all beneath the moon decays, 
And what by mortals in this world is brought, 
In Time's great periods shall return to nought; 
That fairest states have fatal nights and days; 
I know how all the Muse's heavenly lays. 
With toil of spright which are so dearly bought, 
As idle sounds, of few or none are sought. 
And that nought lighter is than airy praise; 
I know frail beauty 's like the purple flower. 
To which one morn oft birth and death affords; 
That love a jarring is of minds' accords. 
Where sense and will invasal reason's power: 
Know what I list, this all cannot me move. 
But that, O me! I both must write and love. 

William Drummond (1585-1649), 
19 



DEAR WOOD, AND YOU, SWEET SOLITARY 
PLACE 

Dear wood, and you, sweet solitary place. 
Where from the vulgar I estranged live, 
Contented more with what your shades me give. 
Than if I had what Thetis doth embrace; 
What snaky eye, grown jealous of my peace. 
Now from your silent horrors would me drive, 
When Sun, progressing in his glorious race 
Beyond the Twins, doth near our pole arrive? 
What sweet dehght a quiet life affords. 
And what is it to be of bondage free. 
Far from the madding worldling's hoarse discords, 
Sweet flowery place I first did learn of thee: 
Ah I if I were mine own, your dear resorts 
I would not change with princes' stately courts. 

William Drummond, 



ALEXIS, HERE SHE STAYED; AMONG 
THESE PINES 

Alexis, here she stayed; among these pines, 

Sweet hermi tress, she did alone repair; 

Here did she spread the treasure of her hair, 

More rich than that brought from the Colchian mines; 

She set her by these musk^d eglantines. 

The happy place the print seems yet to bear; 

Her voice did sweeten here thy sugared lines, 

To which winds, trees, beasts, birds, did lend their ear; 

Me here she first perceived, and here a morn 

Of bright carnations did o'erspread her face; 

Here did she sigh, here first my hopes were born. 

And I first got a pledge of promised grace; 

But ah! what served it to be happy so 

Sith passed pleasures double but new woe? 

William Drummond, 
20 



A ROSE, AS FAIR AS EVER SAW THE 
NORTH 

A ROSE, as fair as ever saw the North, 
Grew m a Httle garden all alone: 
A sweeter flower did Nature ne'er put forth, 
Nor fairer garden yet was never known. 
The maidens danced about it morn and noon. 
And learned bards of it their ditties made; 
The nimble fairies, by the pale-faced moon, 
Watered the root, and kissed her pretty shade. 
But, welladay! the gardener careless grew. 
The maids and fairies both were kept away. 
And in a drought the caterpillars threw 
Themselves upon the bud and every spray. 
God shield the stock! If heaven send no supplies, 
The fairest blossom of the garden dies. 

William Browne (1691-1643 f). 



SIN 

Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round I 
Parents first season us: then schoolmasters 
Deliver us to laws; they send us bound 
To rules of reason, holy messengers, 
Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin, 
Afflictions sorted, anguish of aU sizes, 
Fine nets and strategems to catch us in. 
Bibles laid open, millions of surprises, 
Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness. 
The sound of glory ringing in our ears; 
Without, our shame; within, our consciences; 
Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears. 
Yet all these fences and their whole array 
One cunning bosom-sin blows quite away. 

George Herbert (1593-1633). 

21 



TO THE NIGHTINGALE 

O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray 
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, 
Thou with fresh hope the Lover's heart dost fill, 
While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May. 
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day, 
First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, 
Portend success in love. 0! if Jove's will 
Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay, 
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate 
Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh; 
As thou from year to year hast sung too late 
For my rehef, yet had'st no reason why. 
Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate, 
Both them I serve, and of their train am I. 

John Milton (1608-1674), 



TO THE LORD GENERAL FAIRFAX AT THE 
SIEGE OF COLCHESTER 

Fairfax, whose name in arms through Europe rings, 

FiUing each mouth with envy or with praise, 

And all her jealous monarchs with amaze, 

And rumours loud that daunt remotest kings. 

Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings 

Victory home, though new rebellions raise 

Their Hydra heads, and the false North displays 

Her broken league to imp their serpent wings. 

O, yet a nobler task awaits thy hand 

For what can war but endless war still breed? 

Till truth and right from violence be freed, 

And public faith clear'd from the shameful brand 

Of public fraud. In vain doth Valour bleed. 

While Avarice and Rapine share the land. 

John Milton. 



22 



ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEMONT 

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered Saints, whose bones 
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold; 
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old. 
When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones, 
Forget not: in thy book record their groans 
Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold 
Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that rolled 
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans 
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they 
To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow 
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway 
The triple Tyrant; that from these may grow 
A hundredfold, who, having learnt thy way, 
Early may fly the Babylonian woe. 

John Milton, 



ON HIS BLINDNESS 

When I consider how my light is spent 
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, 
And that one Talent which is death to hide 
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent 
To serve therewith my Maker, and present 
My true account, lest He returning chide, 
*'Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?" 
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent 
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need 
Either man's work, or his own gifts. Who best 
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state 
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed. 
And post o'er land and ocean without rest; 
They also serve who only stand and wait." 

John Milton, 



23 



ON HIS DECEASED WIFE 

Methought I saw my late espoused saint 
Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave, 
Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave, 
Rescued from Death by force, though pale and faint. 
Mine, as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint 
Purification in the Old Law did save. 
And such as yet once more I trust to have 
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint, 
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind. 
Her face was veiled; yet to my fancied sight 
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined 
So clear as in no face with more delight. 
But, oh I as to embrace me she inclined, 
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night. 

John Milton, 



TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL 

ON THE PROPOSALS OF CERTAIN MINISTERS AT THE COMMITTEE 
FOR PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL 

Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud 

Not of war only, but detractions rude. 

Guided by faith and matchless fortitude. 

To peace and truth thy glorious way hast ploughed, 

And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud 

Hast reared God's trophies, and his work pursued, 

While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued. 

And Dunbar field, resounds thy praises loud. 

And Worcester's laureate wreath: yet much remains 

To conquer still; Peace hath her victories 

No less renowned than War: new foes arise. 

Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains. 

Help us to save free conscience from the paw 

Of hireling wolves, whose Gospel is their maw. 

John MiUon. 
24 



ON THE DEATH OF MR. RICHARD WEST 

In vain to me the smiling mornings shine, 
And reddening Phcebus lifts his golden fire; 
The birds in vain their amorous descant join, 
Or cheerful fields resume their green attire: 
These ears, alas! for other notes repine, 
A different object do these eyes require; 
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine, 
And in my breast the imperfect joys expu-e. 
Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer, 
And new-born pleasure brings to happier men: 
The fields to all their wonted tribute bear; 
To warm their Uttle loves the birds complain: 
I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear. 
And weep the more because I weep in vain. 

Thomas Gray (1716-1771), 



ON KING ARTHUR'S ROUND TABLE AT 
WINCHESTER 

Where Venta's Norman castle still uprears 
Its raftered hall, that o'er the grassy f oss 
And scattered flinty fragments clad in moss. 
On yonder steep in naked state appears; 
High-hung remains, the pride of warlike years, 
Old Arthur's board: on the capacious round 
Some British pen has sketched the names renowned. 
In marks obscure, of his immortal peers. 
Though joined with magic skill, with many a rime. 
The Druid frame, unhonoiu-ed, falls a prey 
To the slow vengeance of the wizard Time, 
And fade the British characters away; 
Yet Spenser's page, that chaunts in verse sublime 
Those Chiefs, shall live, unconscious of decay. 

Thomas Warton {1728-1790), 

25 



TO MRS. UNWIN 

Mary 1 1 want a lyre with other strings, 
Such aid from heaven as some have feigned they drew, 
An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new 
And undebased by praise of meaner things; 
That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings, 
I may record thy worth with honour due. 
In verse as musical as thou art true, 
And that immortalizes whom it sings. 
But thou hast little need. There is a Book 
By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light, 
On which the eyes of God not rarely look, 
A chronicle of actions just and bright; 
There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine. 
And, since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine. 
William Cowper (1731-1800). 



WRITTEN AT THE CLOSE OF SPRING 

The garlands fade that Spring so lately wove. 

Each simple flower, which she had nursed in dew, 

Anemonies, that spangled every grove. 

The primrose wan, and harebell mildly blue. 

No more shall violets linger in the dell. 

Or purple orchis variegate the plain. 

Till Spring again shall call forth every bell, 

And dress with humid hands her wreaths again. 

Ah, poor humanity! so frail, so fair 

Are the fond visions of thy early day. 

Till iyrsbnt passion and corrosive care, 

Bid all thy fairy colours fade away. 

Another May new buds and flowers shall bring: 

Ah! why has happiness no second Spring? 

Charlotte Smith (1749-1806). 



26 



OSTEND: ON HEARING THE BELLS AT SEA 

How sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal! 
As when, at opening dawn, the fragrant breeze 
Touches the trembling sense of pale desease, 
So piercing to my heart their force I feel! 
And hark! with lessening cadence now they falll 
And now, along the white and level tide, 
They fling their melancholy music wide; 
Bidding me many a tender thought recall 
Of summer days, and those dehghtful years 
When from an ancient tower, in life's fair prime, 
The mournful magic of their mingling chime 
First waked my wondering childhood into tears! 
But seeming now, when all those days are o'er, 
The sound of joy once heard, and heard no more. 
William Lisle Bowles {1762-1850), 



O TIME! WHO KNOW'ST A LENIENT 
HAND TO LAY 

Time! who know'st a lenient hand to lay 
Softest on sorrow's wound, and slowly thence, 
Lulling to sad repose the weary sense. 

The faint pang stealest unperceived away; 
On thee I rest my only hope at last, 
And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear 
That flows in vain o'er all my soul held dear, 

1 may look back on every sorrow past. 

And meet life's peaceful evening with a smile; — 
As some lone bird, at day's departing hour, 
Sings in the sunbeam, of the transient shower 
Forgetful, though its wings are wet the while: — 
Yet ah! how much must that poor heart endure, 
Which hopes from thee, and thee alone, a cure! 

William Lisle Bowles. 



27 



COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE 

September 3, 1802 

Earth has not anything to show more fair: 
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by 
A sight so touching in its majesty: 
This City now doth, like a garment, wear 
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, 
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie 
Open unto the fields, and to the sky; 
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. 
Never did sun more beautifully steep 
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; 
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! 
The river ghdeth at his own sweet will: 
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; 
And all that mighty heart is lying still! 

William Wordsworth (1770-1850). 



WRITTEN IN LONDON 

September, 1802 

O Friend! I know not which way I must look 

For comfort, being, as I am, opprest, 

To think that now our life is only drest 

For show; mean handy-work of craftsman, cook, 

Or groom! — We must run glittering like a brook 

In the open sunshine, or we are unblest: 

The wealthiest man among us is the best: 

No grandeur now in nature or in book 

Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense, 

This is idolatry; and these we adore: 

Plain living and high thinking are no more: 

The homely beauty of the good old cause 

Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, 

And pure religion breathing household laws. 

William Wordsworth. 
28 



LONDON, 1802 

Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour; 

England hath need of thee: she is a fen 

Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen, 

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, 

Have forfeited their ancient English dower 

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; 

Oh! raise us up, return to us again; 

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart: 

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: 

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 

So didst thou travel on life's common way, 

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart 

The lowliest duties on herself did lay. 

William Wordsworth, 



rr IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND 
FREE 

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, 

The holy time is quiet as a Nun 

Breathless with adoration; the broad sun 

Is sinking down in its tranquillity; 

The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea: 

Listen! the mighty Being is awake, 

And doth with his eternal motion make 

A sound like thunder — everlastingly. 

Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here, 

If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, 

Thy nature is not therefore less divine: 

Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year; 

And worship 'st at the Temple's inner shrine, 

God being with thee when we know it not. 

William Wordsworth. 
29 



THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US 
LATE AND SOON 

The world is too much with us; late and soon, 
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: 
Little we see in Nature that is ours; 
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! 
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; 
The winds that will be howling at all hours. 
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; 
For this, for everything, we are out of tune; 
It moves us not. — Great God! I'd rather be 
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; 
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea. 
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; 
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; 
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. 

William Wordsworth. 



THOUGHT OF A BRITON ON THE 
SUBJUGATION OF SWITZERLAND 

Two Voices are there; one is of the sea. 

One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice: 

In both from age to age thou didst rejoice, 

They were thy chosen music. Liberty! 

There came a Tyrant, and with holy glee 

Thou fought'st against him; but hast vainly striven: 

Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven, 

Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee. 

Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft: 

Then cleave, cleave to that which still is left; 

For, high-souled Maid, what sorrow would it be 

That Mountain floods should thunder as before, 

And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore. 

And neither awful Voice be heard by thee! 

William Wordsworth. 
30 



SCORN NOT THE PONNE^^; oRITIC, YOU 
HAVE FROWNED 

Scorn not the sonnet; Critic, you have frowned, 
Mindless of its just honours; with this key- 
Shakespeare unlocked his heart; the melody 
Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound; 
A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound; 
With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief; 
The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf 
Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned 
His visionary brow; a glow-worm lamp 
It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land 
To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp 
Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand 
The Thing became a trumpet; whence he blew 
Soul-animating strains — alas, too few! 

William Wordsworth. 



SURPRISED BY JOY 

Surprised by joy — impatient as the Wind 

I turned to share the transport — Oh! with whom 

But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb, 

That spot which no vicissitude can find? 

Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind — 

But how could I forget thee? Through what power, 

Even for the least division of an hour, 

Have I been so beguiled as to be blind 

To my most grievous loss? — That thought's return 

Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, 

Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, 

Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more; 

That neither present time, nor years unborn 

Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. 

William Wordsworth. 
31 



MOST SWEET IT IS WITH UNUPLIFTED EYES 

Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes 

To pace the ground, if path be there or none, 

While a fair region round the traveller Hes 

Which he forbears again to look upon; 

Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene, 

The work of Fancy, or some happy tone 

Of meditation, slipping in between 

The beauty coming and the beauty gone. 

K Thought and Love desert us, from that day 

Let us break off all commerce with the Muse: 

With Thought and Love companions of our way, 

Whate'er the senses take or may refuse, 

The Mind's internal heaven shall shed her dews 

Of inspiration on the humblest lay. 

William Wordsworth. 



TO NATURE 

It may indeed be phantasy when I 

Essay to draw from all created things 

Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings; 

And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie 

Lessons of love and earnest piety. 

So let it be; and if the wide world rings 

In mock of this belief, to me it brings 

Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity. 

So will I build my altar in the fields, 

And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be, 

And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields 

Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee, 

Thee only God! and Thou shalt not despise 

Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). 



A WRINKLED, CRABBED MAN ' THEY 
PICTURE THEE 

A WRINKLED, crabbed man they picture thee, 

Old Winter, with a rugged beard as gray 

As the long moss upon the apple-tree; 

Blue-Hpped, an ice-drop at thy sharp blue nose, 

Close muffled up, and on thy dreary way 

Plodding along through sleet and drifting snows. 

They should have drawn thee by the high-heapt hearth, 

Old Winter! seated in thy great arm-chair, 

Watching the children at their Christmas mirth; 

Or circled by them as thy lips declare 

Some merry jest or tale of murder dire, 

Or troubled spirit that disturbs the night, 

Pausing at times to rouse the mouldering fire, 

Or taste the old October brown and bright. 

Robert Southey (1774-1843). 



NIGHT AND DEATH 

Mtsteeious Night! when our first parent knew 
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, 
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame. 
This glorious canopy of light and blue? 
Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, 
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, 
Hesperus with the host of heaven came. 
And lo! Creation widened in man's view. 
Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed 
Within thy beams, Sun! or who could find. 
Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed, 
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind? 
Why do we then shun death with anxious strife! 
If fight can thus deceive, wherefore not life? 

Joseph Blanco White (1775-1841). 



TO THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET 

Green little vaulter in the sunny grass, 

Catching your heart up at the feel of June, 

Sole voice that 's heard amidst the lazy noon. 

When even the bees lag at the summoning brass; 

And you, warm little housekeeper, who class 

With those who think the candles come too soon, 

Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune 

Nick the glad silent moments as they pass; 

Oh sweet and tiny cousins, that belong. 

One to the fields, the other to the hearth. 

Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are strong 

At your clear hearts; and both seem given to earth 

To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song: 

In doors and out, summer and winter. Mirth. 

Leigh Hunt (1784-1859), 



WHAT ART THOU, MIGHTY ONE! AND 
WHERE THY SEAT? 

What art thou. Mighty One! and where thy seat? 
Thou broodest on the calm that cheers the lands, 
And thou dost bear within thine awful hands 
The rolling thunders and the lightnings fleet; 
Stern on thy dark-wrought car of cloud and wind. 
Thou guid'st the northern storm at night's dead noon, 
Or, on the red wing of the fierce monsoon, 
Disturb'st the sleeping giant of the Ind. 
In the drear silence of the polar span 
Dost thou repose? or in the solitude 
Of sultry tracts, where the lone caravan 
Hears nightly howl the tiger's hungry brood? 
Vain thought! the confines of his throne to trace, 
Who glows through all the fields of boundless space! 

Henry Kirke White (1785-1806). 

34 



ON CHILLON 

Eternal spirit of the chainless Mind! 
Bright in dungeons, Liberty! thou art, 
For there thy habitation is the heart — 
The heart which love of thee alone can bind; 
And when thy sons to fetters are consigned — 
To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, 
Their country conquers with their martyrdom. 
And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. 
Chillon! thy prison is a holy place. 
And thy sad floor an altar; for 't was trod. 
Until his very steps have left a trace 
Worn, as if thy cold pavements were a sod, 
By Bonnivard! May none those marks efface! 
For they appeal from tyranny to God. 

Lord Byron {17 88-182 J^), 



THE ROCK OF CASHEL 

Royal and saintly Cashel! I would gaze 

Upon the wreck of thy departed powers 

Not in the dewy light of matin hours. 

Nor the meridian pomp of summer's blaze. 

But at the close of dim autumnal days. 

When the sun's parting glance, through slanting showers, 

Sheds o'er thy rock-throned battlements and towers 

Such awful gleams as brighten o'er Decay's 

Prophetic cheek. At such a time, methinks, 

There breathes from thy lone courts and voiceless aisles 

A melancholy moral; such as sinks 

On the lone traveller's heart, amid the piles 

Of vast Persepolis on her mountain-stand. 

Or Thebes half buried in the desert sand. 

Sir Aubrey de Vere (1788-1846). 

35 



SOME LAWS THERE ARE TOO SACRED FOR 
THE HAND 

Some laws there are too sacred for the hand 
Of man to approach; recorded in the blood 
Of patriots; before which, as the Rood 
Of Faith, devotional we take our stand. 
Time-hallowed laws! magnificently planned 
When Freedom was the nurse of pubhc good. 
And Power, paternal: laws that have withstood 
All storms — unshaken bulwarks of the land! 
Free will, frank speech, an undissembling mind, 
Without which Freedom dies and laws are vain. 
On such we found our rights, to such we cling: 
In these shall Power her surest safeguard find. 
Tread them not down in passion or disdain: 
Make Man a reptile, he will turn and sting. 

Sir Aubrey de Vere. 



THE AFTERMATH 

It was late summer, and the grass again 

Had grown knee-deep, — we stood, my love and I, 

Awhile in silence where the stream runs by; 

Idly we listened to a plaintive strain, — 

A young maid singing to her youthful swain, — 

Ah me, dead days remembered make us sigh, 

And tears will sometimes flow we know not why; 

// spring be past, I said, shall love remain? 

She moved aside, yet soon she answered me, 

Turning her gaze responsive to mine own, — 

Spring days are gone, and yet the grass, we see 

Unto a goodly height again hath grown; 

Dear love, just so lovers aftermath may be 

A richer growth than e'er spring days have known. 

Samuel Waddington {1790-1812). 



36 



OZYMANDIAS 

I MET a traveller from an antique land 
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, 
HaK sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, 
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, 
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. 
And on the pedestal these words appear — 
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: 
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' 
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare 
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'' 

Percy Bysshe Shelley {1792-1822). 



THE RETURN TO POETRY 

Once more the eternal melodies from far 

Woo me like songs of home: once more discerning, 

Through fitful clouds, the pure majestic star 

Above the poet's world serenely burning. 

Thither my soul, fresh-winged by love, is turning, 

As o'er the waves the wood-bird seeks her nest. 

For those green heights of dewy stillness yearning, 

Whence glorious minds o'erlook this earth's unrest. 

Now be the spirit of heaven's truth my guide 

Through the bright land! — that no brief gladness, found 

In passing bloom, rich odour, or sweet sound, 

May lure my footsteps from their aim aside: 

Their true, high quest — to seek, if ne'er to gain. 

The inmost, purest shrine of that august domain. 

Felicia Dorothea Hemans (1793-1835). 



37 



IN HILLY-WOOD 

How sweet to be thus nestling deep in boughs, 

Upon an ashen stoven pillowing me; 

Faintly are heard the plowmen at their plows, 

But not an eye can find its way to see. 

The sunbeams scarce molest me with a smile. 

So thick the leafy armies gather round; 

But where they do, the breeze blows cool the while, 

Their leafy shadows dancing on the ground. 

Full many a flower, too, wishing to be seen. 

Perks up its head the hiding grass between, — 

In mid- wood silence, thus, how sweet to be; 

Where all the noises, that on peace intrude, 

Come from the chittering cricket, bird, and bee, 

Whose songs have charms to sweeten sohtude. 

John Clare {1793-1864). 



ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN^S 
HOMER 

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, 
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; 
Round many western islands have I been 
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told 
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne; 
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene 
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: 
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies 
When a new planet swims into his ken; 
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes 
He stared at the Pacific — and all his men 
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise — 
Silent, upon a peak in Darien. 

John Keats {1795-1821). 
38 



TO ONE WHO HAS BEEN LONG IN 
CITY PENT 

To one who has been long in city pent, 
'T is very sweet to look into the fair 
And open face of heaven, — to breathe a prayer 
Full in the smile of the blue firmament. 
Who is more happy, when, with heart's content. 
Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair 
Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair 
And gentle tale of love and languishment? 
Returning home at evening, with an ear 
Catching the notes of Philomel, — an eye 
Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career, 
He mourns that day so soon has glided by. 
E'en like the passage of an angel's tear 
That falls through the clear ether silently. 

John Keats, 



ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET 

The poetry of earth is never dead: 

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, 

And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run 

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; 

That is the Grasshopper's — he takes the lead 

In summer luxury, — he has never done 

With his dehghts, for when tired out with fun, 

He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. 

The poetry of earth is ceasing never: 

On a lone winter evening, when the frost 

Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills 

The Cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever. 

And seems to one in drowsiness half lost. 

The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. 

John Keats. 
39 



TO SLEEP 

O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight! 

Shutting, with careful fingers and benign, 

Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light, 

Enshaded in forgetfulness divine; 

O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close. 

In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes, 

Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws 

Around my bed its lulling charities; 

Then save me, or the passed day will shine 

Upon my pillow, breeding many woes; 

Save me from curious conscience, that still lords 

Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole; 

Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards, 

And seal the hushed casket of my soul. 

John Keats. 



BRIGHT STAR, WOULD I WERE STEADFAST 
AS THOU ART! 

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art! 

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night 

And watching, with eternal lids apart, 

Like Nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, 

The moving waters at their priestlike task 

Of pure ablution round earth's human shores. 

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask 

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors: 

No — yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, 

Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast. 

To feel forever its soft fall and swell. 

Awake forever in a sweet unrest. 

Still, still, to hear her tender-taken breath, 

And so live ever — or else swoon to death. 

John Keats. 



40 



IF I HAVE SINNED IN ACT, I MAY REPENT 

If I have sinned in act, I may repent; 

If I have erred in thought, I may disclaim 

My silent error, and yet feel no shame; 

But if my soul, big with an ill intent, 

Guilty in will, by fate be innocent. 

Or being bad, yet murmurs at the curse 

And incapacity of being worse, 

That makes my hungry passion still keep Lent ' 

In keen expectance of a Carnival, — 

Where, in all worlds, that round the sun revolve 

And shed their influence on this passive ball, 

Abides a power that can my soul absolve? 

Could any sin survive, and be forgiven. 

One sinful wish would make a hell of heaven. 

Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849), 



WHAT WAS'T AWAKENED FIRST THE 
UNTRIED EAR 

What was't awakened first the untried ear 
Of that sole man who was all human kind? 
Was it the gladsome welcome of the wind. 
Stirring the leaves that never yet were sere? 
The four mellifluous streams that flowed so near, 
Their lulling murmurs all in one combined? 
The note of bird unnamed? The startled hind 
Bursting the brake — in wonder, not in fear, 
Of her new lord? Or did the holy ground 
Send forth mysterious melody to greet 
The gracious pressure of immaculate feet? 
Did viewless seraphs rustle all around. 
Making sweet music out of air as sweet? 
Or his own voice awake him with its sound? 

Hartley Coleridge. 



41 



SILENCE 

There is a silence where hath been no sound, 

There is a silence where no sound may be, 

In the cold grave — under the deep, deep sea, 

Or in wide desert where no life is found, 

Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profoimd; 

No voice is hushed — no life treads silently. 

But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free. 

That never spoke, over the idle ground: 

But in green ruins, in the desolate walls 

Of antique palaces, where Man hath been, 

Though the dun fox, or wild hyena, calls. 

And owls, that flit continually between. 

Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan. 

There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone. 

Thomas Hood (1799-1845), 



SUBSTANCE AND SHADOW 

They do but grope in learning's pedant round 
Who on the phantasies of sense bestow 
An idol substance, bidding us bow low 
Before those shades of being which are found. 
Stirring or still, on man's brief trial-ground; 
As if such shapes and modes, which come and go. 
Had aught of Truth or Life in their poor show, 
To sway or judge, and skill to sain or wound. 
Son of inamortal seed, high-destined Man! 
Know thy dread gift, — a creature, yet a cause: 
Each mind is its own centre, and it draws 
Home to itself, and moulds in its thought's span. 
All outward things, the vassals of its will. 
Aided by Heaven, by earth unthwarted still. 

Cardinal Newman (1801-1890). 



42 



HIDDEN JOYS 

Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem, 

There's not a leaf that falls upon the ground, 

But holds some joy, of silence, or of sound; 

Some sprite begotten of a summer dream. 

The very meanest things are made supreme 

With innate ecstasy. No grain of sand 

But moves a bright and million peopled land. 

And hath its Edens and its Eves, I deem. 

For Love, though blind himself, a curious eye 

Hath lent me, to behold the hearts of things. 

And touched mine ear with power. Thus, far or nigh, 

Minute or mighty, fixed, or free with wings, 

Dehght from many a nameless covert sly 

Peeps sparkling, and in tones famihar sings. 

Samuel Laman Blanchard {1804-1845). 



NATURE 

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er, 
Leads by the hand her little child to bed. 
Half willing, half reluctant to be led. 
And leave his broken playthings on the floor. 
Still gazing at them through the open door. 
Nor wholly reassured and comforted 
By promises of others in their stead. 
Which, though more splendid, may not please him more; 
So Nature deals with us, and takes away 
Our playthings one by one, and by the hand 
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go 
Scarce knowing if we wished to go or stay, 
Being too full of sleep to understand 
How far the unknown transcends the what we know. 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow {1807-1882), 



43 



HOLIDAYS 

The holiest of all holidays are those 

Kept by ourselves in silence and apart; 

The secret anniversaries of the heart, 

When the full river of feeling overflows: — 

The happy days unclouded to their close; 

The sudden joys that out of darkness start 

As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart 

Like swallows singing down each wind that blows! 

White as the gleam of a receding sail, 

White as a cloud that floats and fades in air, 

White as the whitest lily on the stream, 

These tender memories are; — a fairy tale 

Of some enchanted land we know not where. 

But lovely as a landscape in a dream. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 



DIVINA COMMEDIA 

I 

Oft have I seen at some cathedral door 
A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat, 
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet 
Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor 
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er; 
Far off the noises of the world retreat; 
The loud vociferations of the street 
Become an undistinguishable roar. 
So, as I enter here from day to day, 
And leave my burden at this minster gate, 
Kneehng in prayer, and not ashamed to pray, 
The tumult of the time disconsolate 
To inarticulate murmurs dies away, 
While the eternal ages watch and wait. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

44 



II 

How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers! 
This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves 
Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves 
Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers," 
And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers! 
But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves 
Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves, 
And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers! 
Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain, 
What exultations tramphng on despair, 
What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong, 
What passionate outcry of a soul in pain. 
Uprose this poem of the earth and air, 
This mediaeval miracle of song! 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 



Ill 

I ENTER, and I see thee in the gloom 

Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine! 

And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine. 

The air is filled with some unknown perfume; 

The congregation of the dead make room 

For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine; 

Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of pine 

The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb. 

From the confessionals I hear arise 

Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies. 

And lamentations from the crypts below; 

And then a voice celestial that begins 

With the pathetic words, ''Although your sins 

As scarlet be," and ends with "as the snow." 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 

45 



A WRETCHED THING IT WERE, TO HAVE 
OUR HEART 

A WRETCHED thing it were, to have our heart 

Like a broad highway or a populous street. 

Where every idle thought has leave to meet, 

Pause, or pass on, as in an open mart; 

Or like some road-side pool, which no nice art 

Has guarded that the cattle may not beat 

And foul it with a multitude of feet. 

Till of the heavens it can give back no part. 

But keep thou thine a holy sohtude. 

For He, who would walk there, would walk alone; 

He who would drink there, must be first endued 

With single right to call that stream his own; 

Keep thou thine heart close-fastened, unrevealed, 

A fenced garden and a fountain sealed. 

Archbishop Trench (1807-1886), 



TO LEAVE UNSEEN SO MANY A GLORIOUS 
SIGHT 

To leave unseen so many a glorious sight, 

To leave so many lands unvisited. 

To leave so many worthiest books unread, 

Unrealized so many visions bright; 

Oh I wretched yet inevitable spite 

Of our brief span, that we must yield our breath, 

And wrap us in the unfeeling coil of death. 

So much remaining of unproved delight. 

But hush, my soul, and vain regrets, be stilled; 

Find rest in Him who is the complement 

Of whatsoe'er transcends our mortal doom, 

Of baffled hope and unfulfilled intent: 

In the clear vision and aspect of whom 

All longings and all hopes shall be fulfilled. 

Archbishop Trench. 
46 



THE OCEAN 

The Ocean, at the bidding of the Moon, 
For ever changes with his restless tide; 
Flung shoreward now, to be regathered soon 
With kingly pauses of reluctant pride. 
And semblance of return. Anon from home 
He issues forth again, high ridged and free, 
The seething hiss of his tumultuous foam 
Like armies whispering where great echoes be! 
Oh! leave me here upon this beach to rove. 
Mute hstener to that sound so grand and lone — 
A glorious sound, deep-drawn and strongly thrown, 
And reaching those on mountain heights above; 
To British ears, as who shall scorn to own, 
A tutelar fond voice, a Saviour-tone of love I 

Charles Tennyson-Turner (1808-1879). 



THE BUOY-BELL 

How like the leper, with his own sad cry 
Enforcing his own solitude, it tolls! 
That lonely bell set in the rushing shoals, 
To warn us from the place of jeopardy! 
O friend of man! sore- vexed by Ocean's power. 
The changing tides wash o'er thee day by day; 
Thy trembling mouth is filled with bitter spray. 
Yet still thou ringest on from hour to hour; 
High is thy mission, though thy lot is wild — 
To be in danger's realm a guardian sound; 
In seamen's dreams a pleasant part to bear, 
And earn their blessing as the year goes round; 
And strike the key-note of each grateful prayer. 
Breathed in their distant homes by wife or child! 

Charles Tennyson-Turner. 
47 



THE LATTICE AT SUNRISE 

As on my bed at dawn I mused and prayed, 
I saw my lattice pranked upon the wall, 
The flaunting leaves and flitting birds withal — 
A sunny phantom interlaced with shade; 
'Thanks be to heaven!" in happy mood I said, 
'What sweeter aid my matins could befall 
Than this fair glory from the East hath made? 
What holy sleights hath God, the Lord of all. 
To bid us feel and see! we are not free 
To say we see not, for the glory comes 
Nightlj^ and daily, like the flowing sea; 
His lustre pierceth through the midnight glooms; 
And, at prime hour, behold! He follows me 
With golden shadows to my secret rooms! 

Charles Tennyson-Turner. 



TO SCIENCE 

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! 
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. 
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart, 
Vulture whose wings are dull reahties? 
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, 
Who would'st not leave him in his wandering 
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, 
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? 
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car? 
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood 
To seek a shelter in some happier star? 
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood. 
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me 
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree? 

Edgar Allan Poe {1809-1849). 



48 



THE SOUL'S EXPRESSION 

With stammering lips and insufficient sound, 

I strive and struggle to deliver right 

That music of my nature, day and night 

With dream and thought and feeling interwound, 

And inly answering all the senses round 

With octaves of a mystic depth and height 

Which step out grandly to the infinite 

From the dark edges of the sensual ground. 

This song of soul I struggle to outbear 

Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole, 

And utter all myself into the air: 

But if I did it, — as the thunder-roll 

Breaks its own cloud, my flesh would perish there, 

Before that dread apocaljrpse of soul. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning {1809-1861). 



COMFORT 

Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet 
From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low. 
Lest I should fear and fall, and miss Thee so 
Who art not missed by any that entreat. 
Speak to me as to Mary at thy feet! 
And if no precious gums my hands bestow, 
Let my tears drop Uke amber while I go 
In reach of Thy divinest voice complete 
In humanest affection — thus, in sooth, 
To lose the sense of losing. As a child, 
Whose song-bird seeks the wood forevermore, 
Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth 
Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled. 
He sleeps the faster that he wept before. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



49 



SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE 

VI 

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand 
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore 
Alone upon the threshold of my door 
Of individual life, I shall command 
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand 
Serenely in the sunshine as before. 
Without the sense of that which I forbore — 
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land 
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine 
With pulses that beat double. What I do 
And what I dream include thee, as the wine 
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue 
God for myself, He hears that name of thine, 
And sees within mine eyes the tears of two. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 



XIV 

If thou must love me, let it be for nought 
Except for love's sake only. Do not say 
" I love her for her smile — her look — her way 
Of speaking gently, — for a trick of thought 
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought 
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day: " — 
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may 
Be changed, or change for thee, — and love, so wrought, 
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for 
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, — 
A creature might forget to weep, who bore 
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby! 
But love me for love's sake, that evermore 
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 

50 



XXII 

When our two souls stand up erect and strong, 
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher, 
Until the lengthening wings break into fire 
At either curved point, — what bitter wrong 
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long 
Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher, 
The angels would press on us and aspire 
To drop some golden orb of perfect song 
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay- 
Rather on earth. Beloved, — where the unfit 
Contrarious moods of men recoil away 
And isolate pure spirits, and permit 
A place to stand and love in for a day, 
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



XLIII 

How do I lave thee? Let me count the ways. 

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 

My soul can reach, when feeling ^''\, of sight 

For ends of Being and ideal Grace. 

I love thee to the level of everyday's 

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. 

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; 

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. 

I love thee with the passion put to use 

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. 

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 

With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath. 

Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose, 

I shall but love thee better after death. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

51 



MONTENEGRO 

They rose to where their sovran eagle sails, 
They kept their faith, their freedom, on the height, 
Chaste, frugal, savage, arm'd by day and night 
Against the Turk, whose inroad nowhere scales 
Their headlong passes, but his footstep fails, 
And red with blood the Crescent reels from fight 
Before their dauntless hundreds, in prone flight 
By thousands down the crags and thro' the vales. 
O smallest among peoples! rough rock-throne 
Of Freedom! warriors beating back the swarm 
Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years. 
Great Tsernogora! never since thine own 
Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm 
Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers. 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson {1809-1892), 



WRITTEN IN EDINBURGH 

Even thus, methinks, a city reared should be, 

Yea, an imperial city, that might hold 

Five times a hundred noble towns in fee, 

And either with their might of Babel old, 

Or the rich Roman pomp of empery 

Might stand compare, highest in arts enrolled, 

Highest in arms; brave tenement for the free. 

Who never couch to thrones, or sin for gold. 

Thus should her towers be raised — with vicinage 

Of clear bold hills, that curve her very streets, 

As if to vindicate 'mid choicest seats 

Of art, abiding Nature's majesty; 

And the broad sea beyond, in calm or rage 

Chainless alike, and teaching Liberty. 

Arthur Henry Hallam {1811-1833). 



52 



PARTED LOVE 

Methinks I have passed through some dreadful door, 
Shutting off summer and its sunniest glades 
From a dark waste of marsh and ruinous shades: 
And in that sunlit past, one day before 
All other days is crimson to the core; 
That day of days when hand in hand became 
Encirchng arms, and with an effluent flame 
Of terrible surprise, we knew love's lore. 
The rose-red ear that then my hand caressed, 
Those smiles bewildered, that low voice so sweet, 
The truant threads of silk about the brow 
Dishevelled, when our burning lips were pressed 
Together, and the temple-pulses beat! 
All gone now — where am I, and where art thou ? 
William Bell Scott {1811-1890), 



THE UNIVERSE VOID 

Revolving worlds, revolving systems, yea, 
Revolving firmaments, nor there we end; 
Systems of firmaments revolving, send 
Our thought across the Infinite astray. 
Gasping and lost and terrified, the day 
Of life, the goodly interests of home. 
Shrivelled to nothing; that unbounded dome 
Pealing still on, in blind fatality. 
No rest is there for our soul's winged feet. 
She must return for shelter to her ark — 
The body, fair, frail, death-born, incomplete. 
And let her bring this truth back from the dark: 
Life is self-centred, man is nature's god; 
Space, time, are but the walls of his abode. 

William Bell Scott. 



53 



THE HUMAN FLOWER 

In the old void of unrecorded time, 

In long, slow aeons of the voiceless past, 

A seed from out the weltering fire-mist cast. 

Took root — a strugghng plant that from its prime 

Through rudiments uncouth, through rock and slime, 

Grew, changing form and issue — and clinging fast. 

Stretched its aspiring tendrils till at last 

Shaped like a spirit it began to climb 

Beyond its rugged stem, with leaf and bud 

Still burgeoning to greet the sunht air 

That clothed its regal top with love and power. 

And compassed it as with a heavenly flood — 

Until it burst in boom beyond compare. 

The world's consummate, peerless human flower. 

Christopher P. Cranch {1813-1892). 



AGED CITIES 

I HAVE known cities with the strong-armed Rhine 

Clasping their mouldering quays in lordly sweep; 

And Angered where the Marne's low waters shine 

Through Tyrian Frankfort; and been fain to weep 

'Mid the green cliffs where pale Mosella laves 

That Roman sepulchre, imperial Treves. 

Ghent boasts her street, and Bruges her moonlight square; 

And holy Mechlin, Rome of Flanders, stands, 

Like a queen mother, on her spacious lands; 

And Antwerp shoots her glowing spire in air. 

Yet have I seen no place, by inland brook, 

Hill-top, or plain, or trim arcaded bowers. 

That carries age so nobly in its look, 

As Oxford with the sun upon its towers. 

Frederick William Faber (1814-1863). 



54 



TO A FLOWER ON THE SKIRTS OF 
MONT BLANC 

With heart not yet half-rested from Mont Blanc, 
O'er thee, small flower, my wearied eyes I bent, 
And rested on that hmnbler vision long. 
Is there less beauty in thy purple tent 
Outspread, perchance a boundless firmament 
O'er viewless myriads wliich beneath thee throng, 
Than in that mount whose sides, with ruin hung, 
Frown o'er black glens and gorges thunder-rent? 
Is there less mystery? Wisely if we ponder, 
Thine is the mightier marvel. Life in thee 
Is strong as in cherubic wings that wander, 
Seeking the limits of Infinity; — 
Life, life to be transmitted, not to expire 
Till yonder snowy vault shall melt in fire. 

Aubrey de Vere the Younger {1814-1902). 



THE SUN-GOD 

I SAW the Master of the Sun. He stood 

High in his luminous car, himself more bright; 

An Archer of immeasurable might: 

On his left shoulder hung his quivered load; 

Spurned by his Steeds the eastern mountains glowed; 

Forward his eager eye, and brow of light 

He bent; and, while both hands that arch embowed. 

Shaft after shaft pursued the flying Night. 

No wings profaned that god-like form: around 

His neck high-held an ever-moving crowd 

Of locks hung glistening: while such perfect sound 

Fell from his bowstring, that th' ethereal dome 

Thrilled as a dew drop; and each passing cloud 

Expanded, whitening like the ocean foam. 

Aubrey de Vere the Younger, 



65 



THOUGH TO THE VILEST THINGS BENEATH 
THE MOONi 

Though to the vilest things beneath the moon 

For poor Ease' sake I give away my heart, 

And for the moment's sympathy let part 

My sense and sight of truth, Thy precious boon, 

My painful earnings, lost, all lost, as soon 

Almost as gained; and though aside I start. 

Belie Thee daily, hourly, — still Thou art, 

Art surely as in heaven the sun at noon; 

How much so e'er I sin, what e'er I do 

Of evil, still the sky above is blue. 

The stars look down in beauty as before: 

It is enough to walk as best we may. 

To walk, and, sighing, dream of that blest day 

When ill we cannot quell shall be no more. 

Arthur Hugh Clough {1819-1861), 



LOVE 

Our love is not a fading, earthly flower: 

Its winged seed dropped down from Paradise, 

And, nursed by day and night, by sun and shower, 

Doth momently to fresher beauty rise. 

To us the leafless autumn is not bare. 

Nor winter's rattling boughs lack lusty green: 

Our summer hearts make summer's fulness where 

No leaf, or bud, or blossom may be seen: 

For nature's life in love's deep life doth lie; 

Love — whose forgetfulness is beauty's death, 

Whose mystic key these cells of Thou and I 

Into the infinite freedom openeth, 

And makes the body's dark and narrow grate 

The wide-flung leaves of Heaven's palace-gate. 

James Russell Lowell {1819-1891). 

1 Reprinted from Poems, by permission of the publishers, The Macmillan 
Company. 

56 



AN ANCIENT CHESS KING * 

Haply some Rajah first in ages gone 
Amid his languid ladies finger'd thee, 
While a black nightingale, sun-swart as he, 
Sang his one wife, love's passionate orison: 
Haply thou mayst have pleased old Prester John 
Among his pastures, when full royally 
He sat in tent — grave shepherds at his knee — 
While lamps of balsam winked and glimmered on. 
What dost thou here? Thy masters are all dead. 
My heart is full of ruth and yearning pain 
At sight of thee, king that hast a crown 
Outlasting theirs, and tells of greatness fled 
Through cloud-hung nights of unabated rain 
And murmur of the dark majestic town. 

Jean Ingelow {1820-1897), 



"TIMOR MORTIS CONTURBAT ME" 

Could I have sung one Song that should survive 
The singer's voice, and in my country's heart 
Find loving echo — evermore a part 
Of all her sweetest memories; could I give 
One great Thought to the People, that should prove 
The spring of noble action in their hour 
Of darkness, or control their headlong power 
With the firm reins of Justice and of Love; 
Could I have traced one Form that should express 
The sacred mystery that underlies 
All Beauty, and through man's enraptured eyes 
Teach him how beautiful is Holiness, — 
I had not feared thee. But to yield my breath, 
Life's Purpose unfulfilled! — This is thy sting, 
Death! Sir Noel Paton{1821-1901). 

1 Reprinted from Complete Poems, by permission of the publishers, Little, 
Brown & Company. 

57 



IMMORTALITY » 

Foiled by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn, 
We leave the brutal world to take its way, 
And, Patience! in another life, we say, 
The world shall be thrust down, and we up-borne! 
And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn 
The world's poor routed leavings? or will they, 
Who fail'd under the heat of this hfe's day, 
Support the fervours of the heavenly morn? 
No, no! the energy of life may be 
Kept on after the grave, but not begun! 
And he who flagg'd not in the earthly strife, 
From strength to strength advancing — only he. 
His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, 
Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life. 

Matthew Arnold {1822-1888), 



SHAKESPEARE 

Others abide our question. Thou art free. 

We ask and ask — Thou smilest and art still, 

Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill 

Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty. 

Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea. 

Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place, 

Spares but the cloudy border of his base 

To the foil'd searching of Mortahty; 

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know, 

Self-schooled, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure. 

Didst walk on earth unguess'd at. — Better so! 

All pains the immortal spirit must endure, 

All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow. 

Find their sole voice in that victorious brow. 

Matthew Arnold. 

> The two sonnets by Matthew Arnold are reprinted from his Poetical 
Works, by permission of the publishers, The Macmillan Company. 

58 



LIKE A MUSICIAN THAT WITH FLYING 
FINGER 

Like a musician that with flying finger 
Startles the voice of some new instrument, 
And, though he knew that in one string are blent 
All its extremes of sound, yet still doth linger 
Among the hghter threads, fearing to start 
The deep soul of that one melodious wire, 
Lest it, unanswering, dash his high desire. 
And spoil the hopes of his expectant heart; — 
Thus, with my mistress oft conversing, I 
Stir every hghter theme with careless voice, 
Gathering sweet music and celestial joys 
From the harmonious soul o'er which I fly; 
Yet o'er the one deep master-chord I hover, 
And dare not stoop, fearing to tell — I love her. 

William Caldwell Roscoe (1823-1859), 

THE BUBBLE OF THE SILVER SPRINGING 
WAVES 

The bubble of the silver-springing waves, 
CastaUan music, and that flattering sound, 
Low rustling of the loved ApoUian leaves. 
With which my youthful hair was to be crowned, 
Grow dimmer in my ears; while Beauty grieves 
Over her votary, less frequent found; 
And, not untouched by stormes, my life-boat heaves 
Through the splashed ocean-waters, outward bound. 
And as the leaning mariner, his hand 
Clasped on his ear, strives trembling to reclaim 
Some loved lost echo from the fleeting strand, 
So lean I back to the poetic land; 
And in my heart a sound, a voice, a name 
Hangs, as above the lamp hangs the expiring flame. 
William Caldwell Roscoe, 



59 



THE ARMY SURGEON 

Over that breathing waste of friends and foes, 
The wounded and the dying, hour by hour 
In will a thousand, yet but one in power, 
He labours through the red and groaning day. 
The fearful moorland where the myriads lay 
Moved as a moving field of mangled worms. 
And as a raw brood, orphaned in the storms, 
Thrust up their heads if the wind bend a spray 
Above them, but when the bare branch performs 
No sweet parental office, sink away 
With helpless chirp of woe, so, as he goes, 
Around his feet in clamorous agony 
They rise and fall; and all the seething plain 
Bubbles a cauldron vast of many-coloured pain. 

Sydney Dobell (1824-1874). 



HOME: IN WAR TIME 

She turned the fair page with her fairer hand — 
More fair and frail than it was wont to be; 
O'er each remembered thing he loved to see 
She fingered, and as with fairy's wand 
Enchanted it to order. Oft she fanned 
New motes into the sun; and as a bee 
Sings through a brake of bells, so murmured she. 
And so her patient love did understand 
The reliquary room. Upon the sill 
She fed his favorite bird. "Ah, Robin, sing! 
He loves thee." Then she touches a sweet string 
Of soft recafi, and towards the Eastern hifi 
Smiles all her soul — for him who cannot hear 
The raven croaking at his carrion ear. 

Sydney Dobell. 



60 



THE CHURCH IN 1849 

O MIGHTY Mother, hearken! for thy foes 
Gather round thee, and exulting cry- 
That thine old strength is gone and thou must die, 
Pointing with fierce rejoicing to thy woes. 
And is it so? The raging whirlwind blows 
No stronger now than it has done of yore : 
Rebellion, strife, and sin have been before; 
The same companions whom thy Master chose. 
We too rejoice: we know thy might is more 
When to the world thy glory seemeth dim; 
Nor can Hell's gates prevail to conquer Thee, 
Who hearest over all the voice of Him 
Who chose thy first and greatest Prince should be 
A fisher on the Lake of Galilee. 

Adelaide A. Procter {1825-1864), 



DARKNESS! 

Come, blessed Darkness, come, and bring thy balm 

For eyes grown weary of the garish Day! 

Come with thy soft, slow steps, thy garments gray. 

Thy veiling shadows, bearing in thy palm 

The poppy-seeds of slumber, deep and calm! 

Come with thy patient stars, whose far-off ray 

Steals the hot fever of the soul away. 

Thy stillness sweeter than a chanted psalm! 

blessed Darkness, Day indeed is fair, 

And Light is dear when summer days are long. 

And one by one the harvesters go by; 

But so is rest sweet, and surcease from care. 

And folded palms, and hush of evensong, 

And all the unfathomed silence of the sky! 

Julia C. R. Dorr {1825-1913). 

* Reprinted from Poems, by permission of the publishers, Charles Scrib- 
ner's Sons. 

61 



TO A MOTH THAT DRINKETH OF THE 
RIPE OCTOBER 

A MOTH belated, — sun and zephyr-kist, — 

Trembling about a pale arbutus bell, 

Probing to wildering depths its honeyed cell, — 

A noonday thief, a downy sensualist! 

Not vainly, sprite, thou drawest careless breath, 

Strikest ambrosia from the cool-cupped flowers. 

And flutterest through the soft, uncounted hours, 

To drop at last in unawaited death; — 

'T is something to be glad! and those fine thrills 

Which move thee, to my lip have drawn the smile 

Wherewith we look on joy. Drink! drown thine ills, 

If ill have any part in thee; erewhile 

May the pent force — thy bounded life — set free, 

Fill larger sphere with equal ecstasy! 

Emily Pfeiffer {1827-1890), 



TO NATURE 

Blind Cyclops, hurling stones of destiny, 

And not in fury! — working bootless ill, 

In mere vacuity of mind and will — 

Man's soul revolts against thy work and thee! 

Slaves of a despot, conscienceless and nil, 

Slaves, by mad chance befooled to think them free, 

We still might rise, and with one heart agree 

To mar the ruthless grinding of thy mill! 

Dead t3T:*ant, tho' our cries and groans pass by thee, 

Man, cutting off from each new ''tree of life'* 

Himself, its fatal flower, could still defy thee, 

In waging on thy work eternal strife, — 

The races come and coming evermore, 

Heaping with hecatombs thy dead-sea shore. 

Emily Pfeiffer. 



62 



AD MATREM 

March 13, 1862 

Oft in the after-days, when thou and I 
Have fallen from the cope of human view, 
When, both together, under the sweet sky 
We sleep beneath the daisies and the dew. 
Men will recall thy gracious presence bland, 
Conning the pictured sweetness of thy face; 
Will pore o'er paintings by thy plastic hand. 
And vaunt thy skill, and tell thy deeds of grace. 
Oh may they then, who crown thee with true bays, 
Saying, "What love unto her son she bore! " 
Make this addition to thy perfect praise, 
"Nor ever yet was mother worshipped more!" 
So shall I live with thee, and thy dear fame 
Shall link my love unto thine honoured name. 

Julian Henry Fane {1827-1870). 



A SONNET IS A MOMENT'S MONUMENT ^ 

A Sonnet is a moment's monument, — 

Memorial from the Soul's eternity 

To the one deathless hour. Look that it be, 

Whether for lustral right or dire portent, 

Of its own arduous fulness reverent: 

Carve it in ivory or in ebony. 

As Day or Night may rule; and let Time see 

Its flowering crest impearled and orient. 

A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals 

The soul, — its converse to what Power 't is due: — 

Whether for tribute to the august appeals 

Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue, 

It serve: or 'mid the dark wharf's cavernous breath, 

In Charon's palm it pay the toll to Death. 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti {1828-1882). 

* The eight sonnets by Dante Gabriel Rossetti are reprinted from his Com- 
plete Poetical Works, published by Little, Brown & Company. 

63 



LOVE SIGHT 

When do I see thee most, beloved one? 

When in the light the spirits of mine eyes 

Before thy face, their altar, solemnize 

The worship of that Love through thee made known? 

Or when in the dusk hours (we two alone) 

Close-kissed and eloquent of still repHes 

Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies, 

And my soul only sees thy soul its own? 

O love, my love! if I no more should see 

Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee, 

Nor image of thine eyes in any spring, — 

How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope 

The ground- whirl of the perished leaves of Hope, 

The wind of Death's imperishable wing? 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 



THE DARK GLASS 

Not I myself know all my love for thee: 
How should I reach so far, who cannot weigh 
To-morrow's dower by gage of yesterday? 
Shall birth and death, and all dark names that be 
As doors and windows bared to some loud sea. 
Lash deaf mine ears and blind my face with spray; 
And shall my sense pierce love, — the last relay 
And ultimate outpost of eternity? 
Lo! what am I to Love, the lord of all? 
One murmuring shell he gathers from the sand, — 
One httle heart-flame sheltered in his hand. 
Yet through thine eyes he grants me clearest call 
And veriest touch of powers primordial 
That any hour-girt life may understand. 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 



64 



THE SONG-THROE 

By thine own tears thy song must tears beget, 

O Singer! Magic mirror thou hast none 

Except thy manifest heart; and save thine own 

Anguish or ardor, else no amulet. 

Cisterned in Pride, verse is the feathery jet 

Of soulless air-flung fountains; nay, more dry 

Than the Dead Sea for throats that thirst and sigh, 

That song o'er which no singer's lids grew wet. 

The Song-god — He the Sun-god — is no slave 

Of thine: thy Hunter he, who for thy soul 

Fledges his shaft: to no august control 

Of thy skilled hand his quivered store he gave: 

But if thy lips' loud cry leap to his smart, 

The inspir'd recoil shall pierce thy brother's heart. 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 



THE HEART OF THE NIGHT 

From child to youth ; from youth to arduous man; 

From lethargy to fever of the heart; 

From faithful life to dream-dowered days apart; 

From trust to doubt; from doubt to brink of ban; — 

Thus much of change in one swift cycle ran 

Till now. Alas, the soul! — how soon must she 

Accept her primal immortality, — 

The flesh resume its dust whence it began! 

Lord of work and peace! Lord of life! 

O Lord, the awful Lord of will! though late, 

Even yet renew this soul with duteous breath: 

That when the peace is garnered in from strife. 

The work retrieved, the will regenerate. 

This soul may see thy face, O Lord of death! 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 



65 



SOUL'S BEAUTY 

Under the arch of Life, where love and death, 

Terror and mystery, guard her slirine, I saw 

Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe, 

I drew it in as simply as my breath. 

Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath, 

The sky and sea bend on thee, — which can draw, 

By sea or sky or woman, to one law, 

The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath. 

This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise 

Thy voice and hand shake still — long known to thee 

By flying hair and fluttering hem, — the beat 

Following her daily of thy heart and feet. 

How passionately and irretrievably, 

In what fond flight, how many ways and days! 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 



LOST DAYS 

The lost days of my life until to-day. 
What were they, could I see them on the street 
Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat 
Sown once for food but trodden into clay? 
Or golden coins squandered and still to pay? 
Or drops of blood dabbhng the guilty feet? 
Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat 
The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway? 
I do not see them here; but after death 
God knows I know the faces I shall see, — 
Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. 
"I am thyself, — what hast thou done to me? " 
"And I — and I — thyself," (lo! each one saith,) 
"And thou thyself to all eternity!'' 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 



66 



ON REFUSAL OF AID BETWEEN NATIONS 

Not that the earth is changing, O my God! 
Not that the seasons totter in their walk, — 
Nor that the virulent ill of act and talk 
Seethes ever as a wine-press ever trod, — 
Not therefore are we certain that the rod 
Weighs in thine hand to smite thy world; though now 
Beneath thine hand so many nations bow, 
So many kings: — not therefore, my God! 
But because Man is parcelled out in men 
To-day; because, for any wrongful blow, 
No man not stricken asks, *'I would be told 
Why thou dost thus "; but his heart whispers then, 
**He is he, I am I." By this we know 
That the earth falls asunder, being old. 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 



INTERNAL HARMONY ^ 

Assured of worthiness, we do not dread 
Competitors; we rather give them hail 
And greeting in the lists where we may fail: 
Must, if we bear an aim beyond the head! 
My betters are my masters: purely fed 
By their sustainment I Hkewise shall scale 
Some rocky steps between the mount and vale; 
Meanwhile the mark I have and I will wed. 
So that I draw the breath of finer air. 
Station is naught, nor footways laurel-strewn, 
Nor rivals tightly belted for the race. 
God speed to them! My place is here or there, 
My pride is that among them I have place: 
And thus I keep this instrument in tune. 

George Meredith {1828-1909). 

^ The three sonnets by George Meredith are reprinted from hia Works, by 
permission of the publishers, Charles Scribner's Sons. 

67 



ON THE DANGER OF WAR 

Avert, High Wisdom, never vainly wooed, 

This threat of War, that shows a land brain-sick. 

When nations gain the pitch where rhetoric 

Seems reason they are ripe for cannon's food. 

Dark looms the issue though the cause be good, 

But with the doubt 't is our old devil's trick. 

O now the down-slope of the lunatic 

Illumine lest we redden of that brood! 

For not since man, in his first view of Thee, 

Ascended to the heavens, giving sign 

Within him of deep sky and sounded sea. 

Did he unforfeiting thy laws transgress; 

In peril of his blood his ears incline 

To drums whose loudness is their emptiness. 

George Meredith. 



LUCIFER IN STARLIGHT 

On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose. 
Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend 
Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened, 
Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose. 
Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those. 
And now upon his western wing he leaned. 
Now his huge bulk o'er Africa careened. 
Now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows. 
Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars 
With memory of the old revolt from Awe, 
He reached a middle height, and at the stars, 
Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank. 
Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank, 
The army of unalterable law. 

George Meredith, 



68 



DEMOCRACY DOWNTRODDEN 

How long, Lord? — The voice is sounding still: 

Not only heard beneath the altar-stone, 

Not heard of John Evangelist alone 

In Patmos. It doth cry aloud and will 

Between the earth's end and earth's end, until 

The day of the great reckoning — bone for bone, 

And blood for righteous blood, and groan for groan: 

Then shall it cease on the air with a sudden thrill: 

Not slowly growing fainter if the rod 

Strikes here or there amid the evil throng; 

Or one oppressor's hand is stayed and numbs; 

Not till the vengeance that is coming comes. 

For shall all hear the voice excepting God, 

Or God not listen, hearing? — Lord, how long? 

William Michael Rossetti {1829 ). 



THE WORLD 1 

By day she wooes me, soft, exceeding fair: 

But all night as the moon so change th she; 

Loathsome and foul with hideous leprosy, 

And subtle serpents gHding in her hair. 

By day she wooes me to the outer air. 

Ripe fruits, sweet flowers, and full satiety: 

But through the night, a beast she grins at me, 

A very monster void of love and prayer. 

By day she stands a lie: by night she stands. 

In all the naked horror of the truth, 

With pushing horns and clawed and clutching 

hands. 
Is this a friend indeed, that I should sell 
My soul to her, give her my life and youth. 
Till my feet, cloven too, take hold on hell ? 

Christina G, Rossetti (1830-1894). 

' The three sonnets by Christina G. Rossetti are reprinted from her Poetical 
Works, by permission of the publishers, The Macmillan Company. 

69 



REST 

O EAETH, lie heavily upon her eyes; 

Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, Earth; 

Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth, 

With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs. 

She hath no questions, she hath no replies, 

Hush'd in and curtain' d with a blessed dearth 

Of all that irk'd her from the hour of birth; 

With stillness that is almost Paradise. 

Darkness more clear than noonday holdeth her, 

Silence more musical than any song; 

Even her very heart has ceased to stir: 

Until the morning of Eternity 

Her rest shall not begin nor end, but be; 

And when she wakes she will not think it long. 

Christina G. Rossetti. 



REMEMBER 

Remember me when I am gone away, 
Gone far away into the silent land; 
When you can no more hold me by the hand, 
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. 
Remember me when no more, day by day, 
You tell me of our future that you planned: 
Only remember me; you understand 
It will be late to counsel then or pray. 
Yet if you should forget me for a while 
And afterwards remember, do not grieve 
For if the darkness and corruption leave 
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, 
Better by far you should forget and smile 
Than that you should remember and be sad. 

Christina G. Rossetti. 



70 



MAZZINI 1 

That he is dead the sons of kings are glad; 
And in their beds the tyrants sounder sleep. 
Now he is dead his martyrdom will reap 
Late harvest of the palms it should have had 
In life. Too late the tardy lands are sad. 
His unclaimed crown in secret they will keep 
For ages, while in chains they vainly weep, 
And vainly grope to find the roads he bade 
Them take. glorious soul! there is no dearth 
Of worlds. There must be many better worth 
Thy presence and thy leadership than this. 
No doubt, on some great sun to-day, thy birth 
Is for a race, the dawn of Freedom's bliss. 
Which but for thee it might for ages miss. 

Helen Hunt Jackson (1881-1885). 



THE SONNET'S VOICE 

Yon silvery billows breaking on the beach 
Fall back in foam beneath the star-shine clear, 
The while my rhymes are murmuring in your ear 
A restless lore like that the billows teach; 
For on these sonnet- waves my soul would reach 
From its own depths, and rest within you, dear. 
As, through the billowy voices yearning here 
Great nature strives to find a human speech. 
A sonnet is a wave of melody: 
From heaving waters of the impassioned soul 
A billow of tidal music one and whole 
Flows in the '' octave"; then returning free, 
Its ebbing surges in the ''sestet" roll 
Back to the deeps of Life's tumultuous sea. 

Theodore Watts-Dunton {1832 ). 

» Reprinted from Poems, by permission of the publishers, Little, Brown 
Company. 

71 



NATURA BENIGNAi 

What power is this? What witchery wins my feet 
To peaks so sheer they scorn the cloaking snow, 
All silent as the emerald gulfs below, 
Down whose ice-walls the wings of twiUght beat? 
What thrill of earth and heaven — most wild, most 

sweet — 
What answering pulse that all the senses know, 
Comes leaping from the ruddy eastern glow 
Where, far away, the skies and mountains meet? 
Mother, 't is I reborn: I know thee well: 
That throb I know and all its prophesies, 
Mother and Queen, beneath the olden spell 
Of silence, gazing from thy hills and skies! 
Dumb Mother, struggling with the years to tell 
The secret at thy heart through helpless eyes. 

Theodore Watts-Dunton. 



A DREAM 

Beneath the loveHest dream there coils a fear: 
Last night came she whose eyes are memories now; 
Her far-off gaze seemed all forgetful how 
Love dimmed them once, so calm they shone and clear. 
"Sorrow," I said, "has made me old, my dear; 
^T is I, indeed, but grief can change the brow: 
Beneath my load a seraph's neck might bow. 
Vigils like mine would blanch an angel's hair." 
Oh, then I saw, I saw the sweet lips move! 
I saw the love-mists thickening in her eyes — 
I heard a sound as if a murmuring dove 
Felt lonely in the dells of Paradise; 
But when upon my neck she fell, my love. 
Her hair smelt sweet of whin and woodland spice. 

Theodore Watts-Dunton. 

1 The three following sonnets by Theodore Watts-Dunton are reprinted 
from The Coming of Love, by permission of the publishers, John Lane Com- 
pany. 

72 



IN A GRAVEYARD 

Oliver Madox Brown 

November 12, 1874 

Farewell to thee, and to our dreams farewell — 
Dreams of high deeds and golden days of thine, 
Where once again should Art's twin powers combine — 
The painter's wizard- wand, the poet's spell! 
Though Death strikes free, careless of Heaven and Hell — 
Careless of Man, of Love's most lovely shrine; 
Yet must Man speak — must ask of Heaven a sign 
That tliis wild world is God's, and all is well. 
Last night we mourned thee, cursing eyeless Death, 
Who, sparing sons of Baal and Ashtoreth, 
Must needs slay thee, worth all the world to slay; 
But round this grave the winds of winter say: 
"On earth what hath the poet? An alien breath. 
Night holds the keys that ope the doors of Day." 

Theodore Watts-Dunton, 

DANTE 1 

Poet, whose unscarred feet have trodden Hell, 
By what grim path and dread environing 
Of fire couldst thou that dauntless footstep bring 
And plant it firm amid the dolorous cell 
Of darkness where perpetually dwell 
The spirits cursed beyond imagining? 
Or else is thine a visionary wing, 
And all thy terror but a tale to tell? 
*' Neither and both, thou seeker! I have been 
No wilder path than thou thyself dost go. 
Close masked in an impenetrable screen. 
Which having rent I gaze around, and know 
What tragic wastes of gloom, before unseen. 
Curtain the soul that strives and sins below. 

Richard Garnett {1835-1906). 

1 The two sonnets by Richard Garnett are reprinted from The Queen anA 
Other Poems, by permission of the publishers, John Lane Company. 

73 



AGE 

I WILL not rail or grieve, when torpid eld 
Frosts the slow-journeying blood, for I shall see 
The lovelier leaves hang j-ellow on the tree, 
The nimbler brooks in icy fetters held. 
Methinks the aged eye that first beheld 
The fitful ravage of December wild, 
Then knew himself indeed dear Nature's child, 
Seeing the common doom, that all compelled. 
No kindred we to her beloved broods. 
If, dying these, we drew a selfish breath; 
But one path travel all her multitudes. 
And none dispute the solemn Voice that saith: 
"Sun to thy setting; to your autumn, woods; 
Stream to thy sea; and man unto thy death!" 

Richard Gamett. 

A PARABLE 1 

I LONGED for rest, and some one spoke me fair, 
And proffered goodly rooms wherein to dwell. 
Hung round with tapestries, and garnished well, 
That I might take mine ease and pleasure there; 
And there I sought a refuge from despair, 
A joy that should my life's long gloom dispel; 
But ominously through those fair halls there fell 
Strange sounds, as of old music in the air. 
As day went down, the music grew apace. 
And in the moonlight saw I, white and cold, 
A presence, radiant in the radiant space. 
With smiling hps that never had grown old; 
And then I knew the secret none had told. 
And shivered there, an ahen in that place. 

Louise Chandler Moulton (1835-1908). 

* Reprinted from Poems and Sonnets, by permission of the publishers. 
Little, Brown & Company. 

74 



LOVE'S WISDOM! 

Now on the summit of Love's topmost peak 
Kiss we and part; no further can we go; 
And better death than we from high to low 
Should dwindle or dechne from strong to weak. 
We have found all, there is no more to seek; 
All have we proved, no more is there to know; 
And Time could only tutor us to eke 
Out rapture's warmth with custom's afterglow. 
We cannot keep at such a height as this; 
For even straining souls like ours inhale 
But once in life so rarefied a bliss. 
What if we lingered till love's breath should fail! 
Heaven of my Earth! one more celestial kiss, 
Then down by separate pathways to the vale. 

Alfred Austin {1885 ). 



ENGLAND 

While men pay reverence to the mighty things, 
They must revere thee, thou blue-cinctured isle 
Of England — not to-day, but this long while 
In front of nations. Mother of great kings, 
Soldiers, and poets. Round thee the sea flings 
Her steel bright arm, and shields thee from the guile 
And hurt of France. Secure, with august smile, 
Thou sittest, and the East its tribute brings. 
Some say thy old-time power is on the wane. 
Thy moon of grandeur, filled, contracts at length — 
They see it darkening down from less to less. 
Let but a hostile hand make threat again. 
And they shall see thee in thy ancient strength, 
Each iron sinew quivering, lioness! 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907). 

* Reprinted from Lyrical Poems by Alfred Austin, by permission of the 
publishers, The Macmillan Company. 

75 



WHEN I BEHOLD WHAT PLEASURE IS 
PURSUIT 

When I behold what pleasure is Pursuit 
What life, what glorious eagerness it is; 
Then mark how full Possession falls from this, 
How fairer seems the blossom than the fruit, — 
I am perplext, and often stricken mute. 
Wondering which hath attained the higher bliss. 
The winged insect, or the clirysahs 
It thrust aside with unreluctant foot. 
Spirit of verse, that still elud'st my art 
Thou airy phantom that dost ever haunt me, 
never, never rest upon my heart. 
If when I have thee I shall little want thee! 
Still flit away in moonlight, rain, and dew, 
Will-o'-the-wisp, that I may still pursue! 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich. 



TO THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON ^ 

Spring speaks again, and all our woods are stirred, 

And all our wide glad wastes a-flower around. 

That twice have heard keen April's clarion sound 

Since here we first together saw and heard 

Spring's light reverberate and reiterate word 

Shine forth and speak in season. Life stands crowned 

Here with the best one thing it ever found. 

As of my soul's best birthdays dawns the third. 

There is a friend that as the wise man saith 

Cleaves closer than a brother: nor to me 

Hath time not shown, through days like waves at strife. 

This truth more sure than all things else but death. 

This pearl most perfect found in all the sea 

That washes towards your feet these waifs of life. 

Algernon Charles Swinburne {1837-1909). 

1 The two sonnets by Algernon Charles Swinburne are reprinted from his 
Collected Poems, published by Harper & Brothers. 

76 



ON THE RUSSIAN PERSECUTION OF THE 
JEWS 

(Written June, 1882) 

O Son of man, by lying tongues adored, 
By slaughterous hands of slaves with feet red-shod 
In carnage deep as ever Christian trod 
Profaned with prayer and sacrifice abhorred 
And incense from the trembling tyrant's horde, 
Brute worshippers of wielders of the rod. 
Most murderous even of all that call thee God, 
Most treacherous even that ever called thee Lord; 
Face loved of little children long ago, 
Head hated of the priests and rulers then. 
If thou see this, or hear these hounds of thine 
Run ravening as the Gadarean swine, 
Say, was not this thy Passion, to foreknow 
In death's worst hour the works of Christian men? 
Algernon Charles Swinburne, 



THE MARSEILLAISE 

What means this mighty chant, wherein the wail 

Of some intolerable woe, grown strong 

With sense of more intolerable wrong. 

Swells to a stern victorious march — a gale 

Of vengeful wrath? What mean the faces pale, 

The fierce resolve, the ecstatic pangs along 

Life's fiery ways, the demon thoughts which throng 

The gates of awe, when these wild notes assail 

The sleeping of our souls? Hear ye no more 

Than the mad foam of revolution's leaven. 

Than a roused people's throne-o'erwhelming tread? 

Hark! 't is man's spirit thundering on the shore 

Of iron fate; the tramp of titans dread. 

Sworn to dethrone the gods unjust from heaven. 

John Todhunter {1839 ). 

77 



BUT ONE SHORT WEEK AGO THE TREES 
WERE BARE 

But one short week ago the trees were bare, 
And winds were keen and violets pinched with frost; 
Winter was with us; but the larches tost 
Lightly their crimson buds, and here and there 
Rooks cawed. To-day the Spring is in the air 
And in the blood: sweet sun-gleams come and go 
Upon the hills, in lanes the wild flowers blow, 
And tender leaves are bursting everywhere. 
About the hedge the small birds peer and dart, 
Each bush is full of amorous flutterings 
And little rapturous cries. The thrush apart 
Sits throned, and loud his ripe contralto rings. 
Music is on the wind, and in my heart 
Infinite love for all created things. 

John Todhunter, 



THE JEWS' CEMETERY 

Lido of Venice 

A TRACT of land swept by the salt sea foam, 
Fringed with acacia flowers, and billowy-deep 
In meadow grasses, where tall poppies sleep, 
And bees athirst for wilding honey roam. 
How many a bleeding heart hath found its home 
Under these hillocks which the sea-mews sweep! 
Here knelt an outcast race to curse and weep. 
Age after age, 'neath heaven's unanswering dome. 
Sad is the place, and solemn. Grave by grave, 
Lost in the dunes, with rank weeds overgrown, 
Pines in abandonment; as though unknown, 
Uncared for, lay the dead, whose records pave 
This path neglected; each forgotten stone 
Wept by no mourner but the moaning wave. 

John Addington Symonds (1840-1893). 
78 



INEVITABLE CHANGE 

Rebuke me not! I have nor wish nor skill 

To alter one hair's breadth in all this house 

Of Love, rising with domes so luminous 

And air-built galleries on life's topmost hill! 

Only I know that fate, chance, years that kill, 

Change that transmutes, have aimed their darts at us; 

Envying each lovely shrine and amorous 

Reared on earth's soil by man's too passionate will. 

Dread thou the moment when these glittering towers, 

These adamantine walls and gates of gems. 

Shall fade hke forms of sun-forsaken cloud; 

When dulled by imperceptible chill hours, 

The golden spires of our Jerusalems 

Shall melt to mist and vanish in night's shroud! 

John Addington Symonds. 



THE SUBLIME 

To stand upon a windy pinnacle. 
Beneath the infinite blue of the blue noon, 
And underfoot a valley terrible 
As that dim gulf, where sense and being swoon 
When the soul parts; a giant valley strewn 
With giant rocks; asleep, and vast, and still, 
And far away. The torrent, which has hewn 
His pathway through the entrails of the hill, 
Now crawls along the bottom and anon 
Lifts up his voice, a muffled tremulous roar, 
Borne on the wind an instant, and then gone 
Back to the caverns of the middle air; 
A voice as of a nation overthrown 
With beat of drums, when hosts have marched to war. 
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (I84O ). 



79 



A NEW PILGRIMAGE 

XXVIII 

Yet it is pitiful how friendships die, 

Spite of our oaths and eternal high vows. 

Some fall through bhte of tongues wagged secretly, 

Some through strife loud in empty honour's house. 

Some vanish with fame got too glorious, 

And rapt to heaven in fiery chariots fly; 

And some are drowned in sloth and the carouse 

Of wedded joys and long love's tyranny. 

O ye, who with high-hearted valliance 

Deem truth eternal and youth's dreams divine. 

Keep ye from love, and fame, and the mischance 

Of other worship than the Muses nine. 

So haply shall you tread life's latest strand 

With a true brother still, and hand in hand. 

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. 

WITH ESTHER! 

II 

When I hear laughter from a tavern door. 

When I see crowds agape and in the rain 

Watching on tiptoe and with stifled roar 

To see a rocket fired or a bull slain, 

When misers handle gold, when orators 

Touch strong men's hearts with glory till they weep, 

When cities deck their streets for barren wars 

Which have laid waste their youth, and when I keep 

Calmly the count of my own life, and see 

On what poor stuff my manhood's dreams were fed 

Till I too learn'd what dole of vanity 

Will serve a human soul for daily bread, 

— Then I remember that I once was young 

And lived with Esther the world's gods among. 

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. 

1 Reprinted from Esther: A Young Man's Tragedy, by permission of the 
publishers. Small, Maynard & Company. 

80 



DON QUIXOTE 

Behind thy pasteboard, on thy battered hack, 
Thy lean cheek striped with plaster to and fro, 
Thy long spear levelled at the unseen foe, 
And doubtful Sancho trudging at thy back, 
Thou wert a figure strange enough, good lack! 
To make Wiseacredom, both high and low, 
Rub purblind eyes, and (having watched thee go) 
Despatch its Dogberrys upon thy track : 
Alas! poor Knight! Alas! poor soul possest! 
Yet would to-day, when Courtesy grows chill 
And life's fine loyalties are turned to jest, 
Some fire of thine might burn within us still! 
Ah! would but one might lay his lance in rest. 
And charge in earnest — were it but a mill. 

Austin Dobson {I84O ). 



LIFE AND DEATH 

Feom morn to eve they struggled — Life and Death. 
At first it seemed to me that they in mirth 
Contended, and as foes of equal worth. 
So firm their feet, so undisturbed their breath. 
But when the sharp red sun cut through its sheath 
Of western clouds, I saw the brown arms' girth 
Tighten and bear that radiant form to earth, 
And suddenly both fell upon the heath. 
And then the wonder came — for when I fled 
To where those great antagonists down fell 
I could not find the body that I sought, 
And when and where it went I could not tell; 
One only form was left of those who fought, 
The long dark form of Death, and it was dead. 

Cosmo Monkhouse (1840-1901). 



81 



THE DEAD 

The dead abide with us! Though stark and cold 

Earth seems to grip them, they are with us still. 

They have forged our chains of being for good or ill; 

And their invisible hands these hands yet hold. 

Our perishable bodies are the mould 

In which their strong imperishable will — 

Mortality's deep yearning to fulfil — 

Hath grown incorporate through dim time untold. 

Vibrations infinite of life in death, 

As a star's traveUing fight survives its star! 

So may we hold our lives, that when we are 

The fate of those who then wifi draw this breath, 

They shall not drag us to their judgment-bar 

And curse the heritage which we bequeath. 

Mathilde Blind (1841-1896). 



JACOB AND THE ANGEL 

For a design by J. T. Nettleship 

Shall he not bless me? Will he never speak 
Those words of proud concession, "Let me go: 
For the day breaketh?'' Wearily and slow 
The shrouded hours troop past across the peak, 
Eastering; and I, with hands grown all too weak 
And strength that would have failed me long ago, 
But for the set soul, strain to overthrow 
The instant God. — Alas! 't is I that speak — 
Not Jacob — I that in this night of days 
Do wrestle with the angel Art, till breath 
And gladness fail me. Yet the stern soul stays 
And will not loose him till he bless me; ay, 
Even though the night defer my victory 
Until the day break on the dawn of death. 

John Payne (184^ ). 

82 



WITH A COPY OF HENRY VAUGHN'S 
SACRED POEMS 

Lay down thy burden at this gate and knock. 

What if the world without be dark and drear? 

For there be fountains of refreshment here 

Sweeter than all the runnels of the rock. 

Hark! even to thy hand upon the lock 

A wilding warble answers, loud and clear, 

That falls as fain upon the heart of fear 

As shepherds' song unto the folded flock. 

This is the quiet wood-church of the soul. 

Be thankful, heart, to him betimes that stole, 

Some Easter morning, through the golden door — 

Haply ajar for early prayer to rise — 

And brought thee back from that song-flowered shore 

These haunting harmonies of Paradise. 

John Payne, 



AWAKENING 

With brain o'erworn, with heart a summer clod, 
With eye so practised in each form around, — 
And all forms mean, — to glance above the ground 
Irks it, each day of many days we plod, 
Tongue-tied and deaf, along life's common road; 
But suddenly, we know not how, a sound 
Of living streams, an odour, a flower crowned 
With dew, a lark upspringing from the sod, 
And we awake. joy of deep amaze! 
Beneath the everlasting hills we stand. 
We hear the voices of the morning seas, 
And earnest prophesyings in the land. 
While from the open heaven leans forth at gaze 
The encompassing great cloud of witnesses. 

Edward Dowden (1843-1913), 
83 



SEEKING GOD 

I SAID, "I will find God," and forth I went 
To seek Him in the clearness of the sky. 
But over me stood unendurably 
Only a pitiless, sapphire firmament 
Ringing the world, — blank splendour; yet intent 
Still to find God, "I will go seek," said I, 
'His way upon the waters," and drew nigh 
An ocean marge weed-strewn and foam besprent; 
And the waves dashed on idle sand and stone, 
And very vacant was the long, blue sea; 
But in the evening as I sat alone. 
My window opening to the vanishing day. 
Dear God! I could not choose but kneel and pray, 
And it sufficed that I was found of Thee. 

Edward Dowden, 



MY LOVE FOR THEE DOTH MARCH LIKE 
ARMED MEN 

My love for thee doth march like armdd men 
Against a queenly city they would take. 
Along the army's front its banners shake; 
Across the mountains and the sun-smit plain 
It steadfast sweeps as sweeps the steadfast rain; 
And now the trumpet makes the still air quake, 
And now the thundering cannon doth awake 
Echo on echo, echoing loud again. 
But, lo — the conquest higher than bard had sung; 
Instead of answering cannon, proud surrender. 
Joyful the iron gates are open flung. 
And for the conqueror, welcome gay and tender! 
O bright the invader's path with tribute flowers. 
While comrade flags flame forth on walls and towers. 
Richard Watson Gilder {1844-1909). 

84 



THE ODYSSEY 

As one that for a weary space has Iain 
Lulled by the song of Circe and her wine 
In gardens near the pale of Proserpine, 
Where that iEgean isle forgets the main, 
And only the low lutes of love complain. 
And only shadows of wan lovers pine, 
As such an one were glad to know the brine 
Salt on his lips, and the large air again, — 
So gladly, from the songs of modern speech 
Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free 
Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers, 
And through the music of the languid hours. 
They hear like ocean on a western beach 
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey. 

Andrew Lang (1844.-1912), 



TRANSFORMATION 

"Give me the wine of happiness," I cried, 
"The bread of life! — O ye benign, unknown. 

Immortal powers! — I crave them for my own; 

I am athirst, I will not be denied 

Though Hell were up in arms!" No sound replied; 

But turning back to my rude board and lone. 

My soul, confounded, there beheld — a stone, 

Pale water in a shallow cup beside! 

With gushing tears, in utter hopelessness, 

I stood and gazed. Then rose a voice that spoke, — 
"God gave this, too, and what He gave will bless!" 

And 'neath the hands that trembhng took and broke, 

Lo, truly a sweet miracle divine, 

The stone turned bread, the water ruby wine! 

Gertrude Bloede {1845-1905). 



85 



SUNKEN GOLDi 

In dim green depths rot ingot-laden ships; 

And gold doubloons, that from the drowned hand fell, 

Lie nestled in the ocean-flower's bell 

With love's old gifts, once kissed by long-drowned hps; 

And round some wrought gold cup the sea-grass whips, 

And hides lost pearls, near pearls still in their shell. 

Where sea-weed forests fill each ocean dell 

And seek dim sunlight with their restless tips. 

So He the wasted gifts, the long-lost hopes 

Beneath the now hushed surface of myself, 

In lonelier depths than where the diver gropes; 

They lie deep, deep; but I at times behold 

In doubtful glimpses, on some reefy shelf. 

The gleam of irrecoverable gold. 

Eugene Lee-Hamilton (1845-1907). 



SEA-SHELL MURMURS 

The hollow sea-shell which for years hath stood 
On dusty shelves, when held against the ear 
Proclaims its stormy parent; and we hear 
The faint far murmur of the breaking flood. 
We hear the sea. The sea? It is the blood 
In our own veins, impetuous and near. 
And pulses keeping pace with hope and fear 
And with our feelings' ever shifting mood. 
Lo! in my heart I hear, as in a shell, 
The murmur of a world beyond the grave, 
Distinct, distinct, though faint and far it be. 
Thou fool ! this echo is a cheat as well, — 
The hum of earthly instincts; and we crave 
A world unreal as the shell-heard sea. 

Eugene Lee-Hamilton. 

^ Reprinted from Sonnets of the Wingless Hours, by permission of the pub- 
lisher, ElUot Stock. 



AFTER SEVERANCE 

So all the vows of friendship which we swore 
Are broke, and we estranged, at distance stand. 
Across the chasm is stretched no beckoning hand 
Of reconciliation. Now, no more 
We hold sweet talk of books and poets' lore; 
The current of a discord, cold, austere, 
Widens between us, year by bitter year, 
And each drifts further from the other's door. 
Thus some wide summer river that of yore 
Floated the lover to his mistress dear 
Across the sunset waters, now with snows 
Engorged, rough-packed with jagged ice- wastes drear, 
Barriers the way, nor intercourse allows 
From incommunicable shore to shore. 

Lloyd Miffiin {1846 ). 



SUICIDE 

Invisible as a wind along the sky, 
She ever wanders o'er the earth immense, 
A spirit of beauty but malevolence, 
With foot unechoing and with furtive eye. 
She loaths and shuns all haunts where peace may lie, 
Or love, and every joy engendered thence. 
Yet prowls to wait, with wary and avid sense, 
For sorrow's heaviest and most burning sigh! 
Then, when some dreary sufferer darkly fails 
To find in life's chill heaven one starry trace, 
One hope no menace of despair assails, 
Toward him she steals with sure insidious pace. 
And slowly to his desperate look unveils 
The maddening glooms and splendors of her face I 
Edgar Fawcett {1847-1904). 



87 



OTHER WORLDS 

I SOMETIMES muse, when my adventurous gaze 

Has roamed the starry arches of the night, 

That were I dowered with strong angehc sight, 

All would look changed in those pale heavenly ways. 

What wheeling worlds my vision would amaze! 

What chasms of gloom would thrill me and affright! 

What rhythmic equipoise would rouse delight! 

What moons would beam on me, what suns would blaze! 

Then through my awed soul sweeps the larger thought 

Of how creation's edict may have set 

Vast human multitudes on those far spheres, 

With towering passions to which mine mean naught, 

With majesties of happiness, or yet 

With agonies of unconjectured tears! 

Edgar Fawcett. 



PRESCIENCE OF DEATH » 

I WONDER oft why God, who is so good, 
Has barred so close, so close the gates of death. 
I stand and listen with suspended breath 
While night and silence round about me brood. 
If then, perchance, some spirit-whisper would 
Grow audible and pierce my torpid sense, 
And oft I feel a presence, veiled, intense. 
That pulses softly through the solitude; 
But as my soul leaps quivering to my ear 
To grasp the potent message, all takes flight, 
And from the fields and woods I only hear 
The murmurous chorus of the summer night. 
I am as one that's dead — yet in his gloom 
Feels faintly song of birds above his tomb. 

Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen (1848-1895). 

» Reprinted from Idyls of Norway, by permission of the publishers, Charles 
Scribner's Sons. 



VENUS OF THE LOUVRE 

Down the long hall she glistens like a star, 

The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to stone, 

Yet none the less immortal, breathing on. 

Time's brutal hand hath maimed but could not mar. 

When first the enthralled enchantress from afar 

Dazzled mine eyes, I saw not her alone, 

Serenely poised on her world-worshipped throne, 

As when she guided once her dove-drawn car, — 

But at her feet a pale, death-stricken Jew, 

Her life adorer, sobbed farewell to love. 

Here Heine wept! Here still he weeps anew, 

Nor ever shall his shadow lift or move. 

While mourns one ardent heart, one poet-brain, 

For vanished Hellas and Hebraic pain. 

Emma Lazarus (1849-1887). 



SUCCESS 

Oft have I brooded on defeat and pain. 
The pathos of the stupid, stumbling throng. 
These I ignore to-day and only long 
To pour my soul forth in one trumpet strain, 
One clear, grief-shattering, triumphant song, 
For all the victories of man's high endeavor. 
Palm-bearing, laurelled deeds that live forever, 
The splendor clothing him whose will is strong. 
Hast thou beheld the deep, glad eyes of one 
Who has persisted and achieved? Rejoice! 
On naught diviner shines the all-seeing sun. 
Salute him with free heart and choral voice, 
'Midst flippant, feeble crowds of spectres wan, 
The bold, significant, successful man. 

Emma Lazarus, 



EPITHALAMIUM 

High in the organ-loft, with liUied hair, 

Love plied the pedals with his snowy foot, 

Pouring forth music like the scent of fruit, 

And stirring all the incense-laden air; 

We knelt before the altar's gold rail, where 

The priest stood robed, with chalice and palm-shoot, 

With music-men, who bore citole and lute, 

Behind us, and the attendant virgins fair; 

And so our red aurora flashed to gold. 

Our dawn to sudden sun, and all the while 

The high-voiced children trebled clear and cold. 

The censer-boys went singing down the aisle. 

And far above, with fingers strong and sure, 

Love closed our lives* triumphant overture. 

Edmund W. Gosse {1849 ). 



THREE SONNETS OF SORROW ^ 

I 

A CHILD, with mystic eyes and flowing hair, 
I saw her first, 'mid flowers that shared her grace: 
Though but a boy, I cried, "How fau- a face!" 
And, coming nearer, told her she was fair. 
She faintly smiled, yet did not say, "Forbear"! 
But seemed to take a pleasure in my praise. 
She led my steps through many a leafy place 
And pointed where shy birds and flowers were. 
At length we stood upon a brooklet's brink — 
I seem to hear its sources babbhng yet — 
She gave me water from her hand to drink. 
The while her eyes upon its flow were set. 
"Thy name?" I asked; she answered low, "Regret," 
Then faded as the sun began to sink. 

Philip Bourke Marston {1850-1887). 

" The two sonnets by Philip Bourke Marston are reprinted from his Col- 
lected Poems, by permission of the publishers, Little, Brown & Company. 

90 



LOVE AND MUSIC 

I LISTENED to the music broad and deep: 
I heard the tenor in an ecstasy 
Touch the sweet, distant goal; I heard the cry 
Of prayer and passion; and I heard the sweep 
Of mighty wings, that in their waving keep 
The music that the spheres make endlessly, — 
Then my cheek quivered, tears made blind mine eye; 
As flame to flame I felt the quick blood leap. 
And, through the tides and moonlit winds of sound. 
To me love's passionate voice grew audible. 
Again I felt thy heart to my heart bound, 
Then silence on the viols and voices fell; 
But, like the still, small voice within a shell, 
I heard Love thrilling through the void profound. 
Philip Bourke Marston. 



A PRAYER FOR PEACE 

Nearer the eagles swoop in darkening rings, 
Death scents his awful quarry from afar, 
While men in millions march to bloody war 
Hateless, unhated, at the word of Kings: 
But somewhere hid beneath his secret wings 
The sons of God, before a juster bar. 
Plead in his name who bore the cross and scar 
For Love that sees clear-eyed what war-lust brings. 
Plead on, ye seers w^ith love-enlightened eyes. 
Hold up your hands to w^here the angels gaze 
With deep compassion on our human strife; 
Prayer moves the world with power beyond amaze. 
And they who look above this mortal life 
Know Peace on earth, in Heaven hath great allies. 
Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley {1851 ). 



91 



THE ASSIGNATION 

The darkness throbbed that night with the great heat, 

And my heart throbbed at thought of what should be; 

The house was dumb, the lock sUd silently; 

I only heard the night's hot pulses beat 

Around me as I sped with quiet feet 

Down the dark corridors, and once the sea 

Moaned in its slumber, and I stayed, but she 

Came forth to meet me lily-white and sweet. 

Was there a man's soul ever worth her kiss? 

Silent and still I stood, and she drew near, 

And her lips mixed with mine, and her sweet breath 

Fanned my hot face; and afterward I wis, 

What the sea said to us I did not hear; 

But now I know it spake of Doom and Death. 

Herbert E. Clarke {1852 ). 



BEYOND ? 

What hes beyond the splendour of the sun, 
Beyond his flashing belt of sister-spheres? 
What deeps are they whereinto disappears 
The visitant comet's sword, of fire fine-spun? 
What rests beyond the myriad lights that run 
Their nightly race around our human fears? 
Hope-signals raised on multitudinous spears 
Of armies, captained by the Eternal One? 
Beyond the sun, and far beyond the stars, 
Beyond the weariness of this our day. 
Beyond this fretting at the prison-bars, 
The urgent soul, divine in soulless clay. 
Bids us set forth, through endless avatars, 
To seek where God has hidden Himself away. 

George Arthur Greene {1853 ). 

92 



RENOUNCEMENT 

I MUST not think of thee; and, tired yet strong, 

I shun the thought that lurks in all delight — 

The thought of thee — and in the blue Heaven's height, 

And in the sweetest passage of a song. 

Oh! just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng 

Tliis breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright; 

But it must never, never come in sight; 

I must stop short of thee the whole day long. 

But when sleep comes to close each difficult day, 

When night gives pause to the long watch I keep, 

And all my bonds I needs must loose apart, 

Must doff my will as raiment laid away, — 

With the first dream that comes with the first sleep 

I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart. 

Alice Meynell {1853 ). 



NO MORE THESE PASSION-WORN FACES 
SHALL MEN'S EYES 

No more these passion-worn faces shall men's eyes 
Behold in life. Death leaves no trace behind 
Of their wild hate and wilder love, grown blind 
In desperate longing, more than the foam which lies 
Splashed up awhile where the showered spray descries 
The waves whereto their cold limbs were resigned; 
Yet ever doth the sea-wind's undefined 
Vague waiUng shudder with their dying sighs. 
For all men's souls twixt sorrow and love are cast. 
As on the earth each lingers his brief space. 
While surely nightfall comes where each man's face 
In death's obliteration sinks at last. 
As a deserted wind-tossed sea's foam trace — 
Life's chilled boughs emptied by death's autumn blast. 
Oliver Madox Brown (1855-1874). 

93 



GENIUS LOCI* 

Peace, shepherd, peace! What boots it singing on? 

Since long ago grace-giving Phoebus died, 

And all the train that loved the stream-bright side 

Of the poetic mount with him are gone 

Beyond the shores of Styx and Acheron, 

In unexplored realms of night to hide. 

The clouds that strew their shadows far and wide 

Are all of Heaven that visits Helicon. 

Yet here, where never muse or god did haunt. 

Still may some nameless power of Nature stray, 

Pleased with the reedy stream's continual chaunt 

And purple pomp of these broad fields in May. 

The shepherds meet him where he herds the kine, 

And careless pass him by whose is the gift divine. 

Margaret L. Woods {1856 ). 



HER CHOICE 2 

"Behold! it is a draught from Lethe's wave. 
Thy voice of weeping reacheth even that strand 
Washed by strange waters in Elysian land; 
I bring the peace thy weary soul doth crave. 
Drink, and from vain regret thy future save." 
She lifted deep, dark eyes wherein there lay 
The sacred sorrow of love's ended day. 
Then took the chalice from the angel's hand. 
Life with new love, or life with memory 
Of the old love? Her heart made instant choice; 
Like tender music rang the faithful voice: 

" sweet my love, an offering to thee!" 
And with brave smile, albeit the tears flowed fast. 
Upon the earth the priceless draught she cast. 

Eliza Calvert Hall {1856 ). 

1 Reprinted from Collected Poems, by permission of the publishers, John 
Lane Company. 

2 Reprinted from Century Magazine, by permission of the Editors. 

94 



TEARS 

When I consider Life and its few years — 

A wisp of fog betwixt us and the sun; 

A call to battle, and the battle done 

Ere the last echo dies within our ears; 

A rose choked in the grass; an hour of fears; 

The gusts that past a darkening shore do beat; 

The burst of music down an unlistening street — 

I wonder at the idleness of tears. 

Ye old, old dead, and ye of yesternight, 

Chieftains, and bards, and keepers of the sheep, 

By every cup of sorrow that you had. 

Loose me from tears, and make me see aright 

How each hath back what once he stayed to weep: 

Homer his sight, David his little lad. 

Lizette Woodworth Reese (1856 ). 



HISTORY 

Darkly, as by some gloomed mirror glassed, 
Herein at times the brooding eye beholds 
The great scarred visage of the pompous Past; 
But oftener only the embroidered folds 
And soiled regality of his rent robe, 
Whose tattered skirts are ruined dynasties 
And cumber with their trailing pride the globe. 
And sweep the dusty ages in our eyes; 
Till the world seems a world of husks and bones 
Where sightless Seers and Immortals dead. 
Kings that remember not their awful thrones. 
Invincible armies long since vanquished, 
And powerless potentates and foolish sages 
Lie 'mid the crumbling of the massy ages. 

William Watson [1858 ). 



95 



FRIEND, WHO IN THESE SAD NUMBERS 
DOST DEPLORE 

To an American Poet after reading his " Dirge on the Violation 
of the Panama Treaty " 

Friend, who in these sad numbers dost deplore 
A faithless deed: because I love thy land. 
That gave to me of late so hearty a hand, 
In thronged Manhattan, or amid the roar 
Of that loud city on Michigan's still shore, 
Therefore do I rejoice that one pure band 
Keep not ignoble silence, but withstand 
Ev'n Her, their mother, when she shuts the door 
In Honour's face. So Chatham, whose free speech 
Yet rings through Time — so Wordsworth, whose free song 
Comes blowing from his mountains — dared to impeach 
Their England, speaking out for Man. And long 
May Earth breed men like these, who scorned to teach 
That Power can shift the bounds of Right and Wrong. 

William Watson. 

RIZPAH 1 

Blown through the gusty spaces of the night. 

The pale clouds fleet like ghosts along the sky; 

A fitful wind goes moaning feebly by. 

And the faint moon, poised o'er the craggy height, 

Dies in its own uncertain, misty light. 

Within the hills the water-springs are dry; 

The herbs are withered; and the sand- wastes lie 

Dim, wide, and lonely to the weary sight. 

Behold! her awful vigil she will keep 

Through the wan night as through the burning day; 

Though all the world should sleep she will not sleep, 

But watch, wild-eyed and fierce, to scare away, 

As round and round, with hoarse, low cries they creep, 

From her dead sons the hungry beasts of prey. 

James B. Kenyan (1858 ). 

» The two sonnets by James B. Kenyon are reprinted from In Realms of 
Gold, by permission of the publishers, Cassell & Company, Limited. 

96 



THE TRAVELLER 

When in the dark we slowly drift away 
O'er unknown seas, and busy thoughts at last 
Are quieted, and all the cares are past 
That, bandit-like, infest the reahns of day — 
To what pale country does the spirit stray? 
Within what wan lit land, what regions vast, 
Does this strange traveller travel far and fast, 
Till in the east the day breaks, cold and gray? 
Ah, tell me, when we slumber, whither goes, 
And whence at waking comes, the silent guest, 
Whose face no man hath seen, whom no man knows — 
The dim familiar of each human breast? 
Behold, at length, when day indeed shall close, 
Will this uneasy traveller, too, have rest? 

James B. Kenyon, 

LOVE'S VARLETS 

Love, he is nearer (though the moralist 
Of rule and line cry shame on me), more near 
To thee and to the heart of thee, be't wist, 
Who sins against thee even for the dear 
Lack that he hath of thee; than who, chill- wrapt 
In thy light-thought-on customed livery, 
Keeps all thy laws with formal service apt, 
Save that great law to tremble and to be 
Shook to his heart-strings if there do but pass 
The rumour of thy pinions. Such one is 
Thy varlet, guerdoned with the daily mass 
That feed on thy remainder-meats of bliss. 
More hath he of thy bosom, whose slips of grace 
Fell through despair of thy close gracious face. 

Francis Thompson (1859-1907). 



97 



THE CONTRAST 

He loved her; having felt his love begin 
With that first look, — as lover oft avers. 
He made pale flowers his pleading ministers, 
Impressed sweet music, drew the springtime in 
To serve his suit; but when he could not win, 
Forgot her face and those gray eyes of hers; 
And at her name his pulse no longer stirs, 
And life goes on as if she had not been. 
She never loved him; but she loved Love so, 
So reverenced Love, that all her being shook 
At his demand whose entrance she denied. 
Her thoughts of him such tender color took 
As western skies that keep the afterglow. 
The words he spoke were with her till she died. 
Helen Gray Cone {1859 



AN UNPRAISED PICTURE ^ 

I SAW a picture once by Angelo, — 
*' Unfinished," said the critic, "done in youth," — 
And that was all, no thought of praise, forsooth! 
He was informed, and doubtless it was so. 
And yet I let an hour of dreaming go 
The way of all time, touched to tears and ruth, 
Passion and joy, the prick of conscience's tooth. 
Before that careworn Christ's divine, soft glow. 
The painter's yearning with an unsure hand 
Had moved me more than might his master days: 
He seemed to speak like one whose Mecca-land 
Is first beheld, tho' faint and far the w^ays; 
Who may not then his shaken voice command 
Yet trembles forth a word of prayer and praise. 

Richard E. Burton {1859 ). 

1 Reprinted from Dumb in June, by permission of the publishers, Lothrop, 
Lee & Shepard Company. 



AMERICA TO ENGLAND, 1900 ^ 

The nightmare melts at last, and London wakes 

To her old habit of victorious ease. 

More men, and more, and more for over-seas, 

More guns until the giant hammer breaks 

That patriot folk whom even God forsakes. 

Shall not great England work her will on these, 

The foolish little nations, and appease 

An angry shame that in her memory aches? 

But far beyond the fierce-contested flood. 

The cannon-planted pass, the shell-torn town, 

The last wild carnival of fire and blood. 

Beware, beware that dim and awful Shade, 

Armored with Milton's sword and Cromwell's frown, 

Affronted freedom, of her own betrayed! 

Katherine Lee Bates {1859 ). 

THE REST IS SILENCE 

II 

Eager and shy, as when among her peers 

A girl will pour her confidence, she told. 

In voice where laughter ran a thread of gold, 

A history all novel to our ears. 

Her bhssful eyes oblivious of tears. 

With lingering touch she one by one unrolled 

Her bridal memories from fold on fold 

Of fragrant silence. Dead these fifty years 

Was he with whom, young hand in hand, she went 

To their first home, which simple neighbor-folk 

Had filled with garden-bloom and forest scent; 

Yet still of him, and that June path they fared. 

Those welcoming flowers, her failing accents spoke; 

— Of how Love led her to a place prepared. 

Katherine Lee Bates. 

> The two sonnets by Katherine Lee Bates are reprinted from America the 
Beautiful, by permission of the publishers, Thomas Y. Crowell Company. 

99 



THE CUP OF LIFEi 

One after one the high emotions fade; 

Time's wheeling measure empties and refills 

Year after year; we seek no more the hills 

That lured our youth divine and unafraid, 

But swarming on some common highway, made 

Beaten and smooth, plod onward with blind feet; 

And only where the crowded crossways meet 

We halt and question, anxious and dismayed. 

Yet can we not escape it; some we know 

Have angered and grown mad, some scornfully laughed; 

Yet surely to each lip — to mine, to thine — 

Comes with strange scent and pallid poisonous glow 

The cup of Life, that dull Circean draught. 

That taints us all, and turns the half to swine. 

Archibald Lampman (1861-1899), 

THE LARGEST LIFE 

II 

Nay, never once to feel we are alone. 
While the great human heart around us lies: 
To make the smile on other lips our own, 
To live upon the light in others' eyes: 
To breathe without a doubt the limpid air 
Of that most perfect love that knows no pain: 
To say — I love you — only, and not care 
Whether the love come back to us again, 
Divinest self-forgetfulness, at first 
A task, then a tonic, then a need; 
To greet with open hands the best and worst, 
And only for another's wound to bleed: 
This is to see the beauty that God meant. 
Wrapped round with life, ineffably content. 

Archibald Lampman. 

» The two sonnets by Archibald Lampman are reprinted from his Poems 
(Morang & Company), by permission of the executors of the Lampman estate. 



100 



TO PAINi 

Not by the minutes of thin torture spun, 
Not by the nights whose hours halt and slip back, 
Not by the days when golden noon turns black, 
Hast thou dismayed me; but that, one by one, 
Pale shadows pass me of my tasks undone. 
While, like a victim loosed from wheel and rack. 
With will unnerved, breath scant and sinew slack, 
I droop, where glad folk labour in the sun. 
And yet, winged Inquisitor, return. 
Stay, though I cringe and cry and plead for grace, 
If thou hast more to teach, still would I learn; 
I choose, even with faint heart and quivering lip. 
Some place in the great, patient fellowship 
Of those that know the Ught upon thy face. 

Sophie Jewett (1861-1909), 

TO W. P.2 

II 

With you a part of me hath passed away; 

For in the peopled forest of my mind 

A tree made leafless by this wintry wind 

Shall never don again its green array. 

Chapel and fireside, country road and bay. 

Have something of their friendliness resigned; 

Another, if I would, I could not find, 

And I am grown much older in a day. 

But yet I treasure in my memory 

Your gift of charity, your mellow ease. 

And the dear honour of your amity; 

For these once mine, my life is rich with these. 

And I scarce know which part may greater be, — 

What I keep of you, or you rob from me. 

George Santmjana (1863 ). 

» Reprinted from Poems, by permission of the publishers, Thomas Y. 
Crowell Company. 

2 The two sonnets by George Santayana are reprinted from Sonnets and 
Other Verse, by permission of the publishers, Duflfield & Company. 

101 



SONNETS 

XX 

These strewn thoughts, by the mountain pathway 

sprung, 
I conned for comfort, till I ceased to grieve. 
And with these flowering thorns I dare to weave 
The crown, great Mother, on thine altar hung. 
Teach thou a larger speech to my loosed tongue, 
And to mine opened eyes thy secrets give, 
That in thy perfect love I learn to live, 
And in thine immortality be young. 
The soul is not on earth an alien thing 
That hath her life's rich sources otherwhere; 
She is a parcel of the sacred air. 
She takes her being from the breath of Spring, 
The glance of Phoebus is her font of light. 
And her long sleep a draught of primal night. 

George Santayana. 

NOVEMBER i 

Hark you such sound as quivers? Kings will hear, 

As kings have heard, and tremble on their thrones; 

The old will feel the weight of mossy stones; 

The young alone will laugh and scoff at fear. 

It is the tread of armies marching near, 

From scarlet lands to lands forever pale; 

It is a bugle dying down the gale; 

It is the sudden gushing of a tear. 

And it is hands that grope at ghostly doors; 

And romp of spirit children on the pave; 

It is the tender sighing of the brave 

Who fell, ah! long ago, in futile wars; 

It is such sound as death; and, after all, 

'T is but the forest letting dead leaves fall. 

Mahlon Leonard Fisher {1874 )• 

* Reprinted by permission from Braithwaite's Anthology of Magazine Verse 
for 1913. The sonnet was originally published in The Bellman. 

102 



DOORS 

Like a young child who to his mother's door 

Runs eager for the welcoming embrace, 

And finds the door shut, and with troubled face 

Calls and through sobbing calls, and o'er and o'er 

Calling, storms at the panel — so before 

A door that will not open, sick and numb, 

I Hsten for a word that will not come. 

And know at last I may not enter more. 

Silence! And through the silence and the dark 

By that closed door, the distant sob of tears 

Beats on my spirit, as on fairy shores 

The spectral sea; and through the sobbing, hark! 

Down the fair-chambered corridor of years. 

The quiet shutting, one by one, of doors. 

Herman Hagedorn {1882 ). 



THE SOLDIER 1 

If I should die, think only this of me: 

That there's some corner of a foreign field 

That is forever England. There shall be 

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; 

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware. 

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, 

A body of England's, breathing EngHsh ah-. 

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. 

And think, tliis heart, all evil shed away, 

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less 

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; 

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; 

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, 

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. 

Rupert Brooke (1887-1915). 

* Reprinted from Poetry, A Magazine of Verse, by permission of the Editor. 

103 



TO MRS. HYNDMAN^ 

July 1, 1913 

Mother of those whose need of mothering 
Made them your children! By your open grave 
High summer speaks with voice tall poplars have 
At noon, and larks have found a place to sing, 
Though round July's blue mirror coil and cling 
The factory's dark breath. For you, who gave 
Love-labour, yet more men shall live to save 
The seed of men from Mammon's harvesting. 
Wherefore I think you would not have us weep 
That stand together here, and in the sun 
Look last on you, who, from long labour, won 
This quiet ground's full heritage of sleep, 
But tears within the heart would have us keep, 
That human love like yours grows fresh upon. 

John Helston, 

DEAF 

These have I lost: now cushats only call 
In long-lost groves down vales of memory; 
And cuckoos sing in springs that used to be; 
While owls go hooting, weirdly musical, 
'Neath purple nights that have been buried all 
In the dark tomb of years; and ceaselessly 
The singing rills reecho from a sea 
Where long ago they found their funeral. 
And thro' the dusty crannies of my heart 
The winds go wailing; and the dancing leaves 
Beat their fine joys behind my closed eyes; 
While in a secret storehouse set apart 
I hear the sobbing of a sea that grieves, 
And of a little summer wind that dies. 

H. M. Waithman. 

• Reprinted from Aphrodite, and Other Poems, by permission of the pub- 
lishers. The Macmillan Company. 

104 



THE PENALTY OF LOVE » 

If Love should count you worthy, and should deign 
One day to seek your door and be your guest, 
Pause! ere you draw the bolt and bid him rest, 
If in your old content you would remain. 
For not alone he enters: in his train 
Are angels of the mists, the lonely quest. 
Dreams of the unfulfilled, the unpossessed; 
And sorrow, and Life's immemorial pain. 
He wakes desires you never may forget, 
He shows you stars you never saw before. 
He makes you share with him, for evermore, 
The burden of the world's divine regret. 
How wise were you to open not! — and yet, 
How poor if you should turn him from the door! 

Sidney Royse Lysaght 

* Reprinted from Poems of the Unknown Way, by permission of the pub- 
lishers, The Macmillan Company. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS 

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey 75, 76 

Arnold, Matthew 58 

Austin, Alfred 75 

Barnes, Barnabe 18 

Bat^s, Katherine Lee 99 

Blanchard, Samuel Laman 43 

Blind, Mathilde 82 

Bloede, Gertrude 85 

Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen 79, 80 

Bowles, William Lisle 27 

Boyesen, Hjalmar Hjorth 88 

Brooke, Rupert 103 

Brown, Oliver Madox 93 

Browne, William 21 

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett 49, 50, 51 

Burton, Richard E 98 

Byron, Lord 35 

Clare, John 38 

Clarke, Herbert E 92 

Clough, Arthur Hugh 56 

Coleridge, Hartley 41 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 32 

Cone, Helen Gray 98 

Constable, Henry 9 

CowPER, William 26 

Cranch, Christopher P 54 

Daniel, Samuel 9, 10 

De Vere, Sir Aubrey 35, 36 

De Vere, Aubrey, the Younger 55 

Dobell, Sydney 60 

Dobson, Austin 81 

Donne, John 18, 19 

Dorr, Julia C. R 61 

DowDEN, Edward 83, 84 

Drayton, Michael 11 

Drummond, William 19, 20 

107 



INDEX OF AUTHORS 

Faber, Frederick William 54 

Fane, Julian Henry 63 

Fawcett, Edgar 87, 88 

Fisher, Mahlon Leonard 102 

Garnett, Richard 73, 74 

Gilder, Richard Watson 84 

GossE, Edmund W 90 

Gray, Thomas 25 

Greene, George Arthur 92 

Greene, Robert 8 

Hagedorn, Herman 103 

Hall, Eliza Calvert 94 

Hallam, Arthur Henry 52 

Helston, John 104 

Hemans, Felicia Dorothea 37 

Herbert, George 21 

Hood, Thomas 42 

Hunt, Leigh 34 

Ingelow, Jean 57 

Jackson, Helen Hunt 71 

Jewett, Sophie 101 

Keats, John 38, 39, 40 

Kenyon, James B 96, 97 

Lampman, Archibald 100 

Lang, Andrew 85 

Lazarus, Emma 89 

Lee-Hamilton, Eugene 86 

Lodge, Thomas 8 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth 43, 44, 45 

Lowell, James Russell 56 

Lysaght, Sidney Royse 105 

Marston, Philip Bourkb 90, 91 

Meredith, George 67, 68 

Meynell, Alice 93 

Mifflin, Lloyd 87 

Milton, John 22, 23, 24 

Monkhouse, Cosmo 81 

Moulton, Louise Chandler 74 

Newman, Cardinal 42 

Paton, Sir Noel 57 

Payne, John 82, 83 

108 



INDEX OF AUTHORS 

Pfeiffer, Emily 62 

PoE, Edgar Allan 48 

Procter, Adelaide A 61 

Raleigh, Sir Walter 5 

Rawnsley, Hardwicke Drummond 91 

Reese, Lizette Woodworth 95 

Roscoe, William Caldwell 59 

RossETTi, Christina G 69, 70 

RossETTi, Dante Gabriel 63, 64, 65, 66, 67 

RossETTi, William Michael 69 

Santayana, George 101, 102 

Scott, William Bell 53 

Shakespeare, William 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe 37 

Sidney, Sir Philip 6, 7 

Smith, Charlotte 26 

Southey, Robert 33 

Spenser, Edmund 3, 4, 5 

Surrey, Earl op 2 

Swinburne, Algernon Charles 76, 77 

Sylvester, Joshuah 10 

Symonds, John Addington 78, 79 

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord 52 

Tennyson-Turner, Charles 47, 48 

Thompson, Francis 97 

TODHUNTER, JOHN 77, 78 

Trench, Archbishop 46 

Waddington, Samuel 36 

Waithman, H. M 104 

Warton, Thomas 25 

Watson, William 95, 96 

Watts-Dunton, Theodore 71, 72, 73 

White, Henry Kirke 34 

White, Joseph Blanco 33 

Woods, Margaret L 94 

Wordsworth, William 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 

Wyatt, Sir Thomas 1 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

A child, with mystic eyes and flowing hair 90 

A Moth belated, — sun and zephyr-kist 62 

A Rose, as fair as ever saw the North 21 

A Sonnet is a moment's monument 63 

A tract of land swept by the salt sea foam 78 

A wretched thing it were, to have our heart 46 

A wrinkled, crabbed man they picture thee 33 

Ah, sweet Content! where is thy mild abode? 18 

Alexis, here she stayed; among these pines 20 

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er 43 

As on my bed at dawn I mused and prayed 48 

As one that for a weary space has lain 85 

Assured of worthiness, we do not dread 67 

At the round earth's imagined corners blow 18 

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered Saints, whose bones .... 23 

Avert, High Wisdom, never vainly wooed 68 

Beauty, sweet Love, is like the morning dew 9 

Behind thy pasteboard, on thy battered hack 81 

" Behold! it is a draught from Lethe's wave 94 

Beneath the loveliest dream there coils a fear 72 

Bhnd Cyclops, hurling stones of destiny 62 

Blown through the gusty spaces of the night 96 

Bright Star of Beauty! on whose Eyelids sit 11 

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art! 40 

But one short week ago the trees were bare 78 

By day she wooes me, soft, exceeding fair 69 

By thine own tears thy song must tears beget 65 

Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night 10 

Come, blessed Darkness, come and bring thy balm 61 

Come Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace 6 

Could I have sung one Song that should survive 57 

Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud 24 

Darkly, as by some gloomed mirror glassed 95 

Dear wood, and you, sweet solitary place 20 

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee 19 

Divers doth use, as I have heard and know 1 

Down the long hall she glistens like a star 89 

Eager and shy, as when among her peers 99 

Earth has not anything to show more fair 28 

110 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

Eternal spirit of the chainless Mind! 35 

Even thus, methinks, a city reared should be 52 

Fair art thou, Phillis, ay, so fair, sweet maid 8 

Fairfax, whose name in arms through Europe rings 22 

Farewell to thee, and to our dreams farewell 73 

Foil'd by our fellow-men, depress'd, outworn 58 

Friend, who in these sad numbers dost deplore 96 

From child to youth ; from youth to arduous man 65 

From morn to eve they struggled — Life and Death 81 

From you have I been absent in the spring 15 

Full many a glorious morning have I seen 13 

"Give me the wine of happiness," I cried 85 

Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand 50 

Green little vaulter in the sunny grass 34 

Haply some Rajah first in ages gone 57 

Hark you such sound as quivers? Kings will hear 102 

Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance 7 

He loved her; having felt his love begin 98 

High in the organ-loft, with lillied hair 90 

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways 51 

How like the leper, with his own sad cry 47 

How long, O Lord? — The voice is sounding still 69 

How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers! 45 

How sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal! 27 

How sweet to be thus nestling deep in boughs 38 

I enter, and I see thee in the gloom 45 

I have known cities with the strong-armed Rhine 54 

I know that all beneath the moon decays 19 

I listened to the music broad and deep 91 

I longed for rest, and some one spoke me fair 74 

I met a traveller from an antique land 37 

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong 93 

I said, "I will find God," and forth I went 84 

I saw a picture once by Angelo 98 

I saw the Master of the Sun. He stood 55 

I sometimes muse, when my adventurous gaze 88 

I will not rail or grieve, when torpid eld 74 

I wonder oft why God, who is so good 88 

If I have sinned in act, I may repent 41 

If I should die, think only this of me 103 

If Love should count you worthy, and should deign 105 

If thou must love me, let it be for nought 50 

In dim green depths rot ingot-laden ships 86 

111 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

In the old void of unrecorded time 54 

In vain to me the smiling mornings shine 25 

Invisible as a wind along the sky 87 

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free 29 

It may indeed be phantasy when 1 32 

It was late summer, and the grass again 36 

Lay down thy burden at this gate and knock 83 

Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust 7 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds 17 

Like a musician that with flying finger 59 

Like a young child who to his mother's door 103 

Like as a huntsman after weary chase 4 

Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round! 21 

Love, he is nearer, though the moralist 97 

Mark when she smiles with amiable cheer 3 

Mary! I want a lyre with other strings 26 

Methinks I have passed through some dreadful door 53 

Methought I saw my late espoused saint 24 

Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay 5 

Milton! thou should 'st be living at this hour 29 

Most glorious Lord of life! that, on this day 4 

Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes 32 

Mother of those whose need of mothering 104 

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold 38 

My lady's presence makes the Roses red 9 

My love for thee doth march like armed men 84 

My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming ... 16 

Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew 33 

Nay, never once to feel we are alone 100 

Nearer the eagles swoop in darkening rings 91 

No longer mourn for me when I am dead 14 

No more these passion-worn faces shall men's eyes 93 

Not by the minutes of thin torture spun 101 

Not I myself know all my love for thee 64 

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments 14 

Not that the earth is changing, O my God! 67 

Now on the summit of Love's topmost peak 75 

O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes 70 

O Friend! I know not which way I must look 28 

O Mighty Mother, hearken! for thy foes 61 

O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray 22 

O soft embalmer of the still midnight! 40 

O Son of man, by lying tongues adored 77 

112 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

O Time! who know'st a lenient hand to lay 27 

Oft have I brooded on defeat and pain 89 

Oft have I seen at some cathedral door 44 

Oft in the after-days, when thou and 1 63 

On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose 68 

One after one the high emotions fade 100 

One day I wrote her name upon the strand 5 

Once more the eternal melodies from far 37 

Others abide our question. Thou art free 58 

Our love is not a fading, earthly flower 56 

Over that breathing waste of friends and foes 60 

Peace, shepherd, peace ! What boots it singing on? 94 

Pleasures lie thickest where no pleasures seem 43 

Poet, whose unscarred feet have trodden Hell 73 

Rebuke me not! I have nor wish nor skill 79 

Remember me when I am gone away 70 

Revolving worlds, revolving systems, yea 53 

Royal and saintly Cashel! I would gaze 35 

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! 48 

Scorn not the sonnet; Critic, you have frowned 31 

Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green 2 

Shall he not bless me? Will he never speak 82 

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 12 

She turned the fair page with her fairer hand 60 

Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part 11 

So all the vows of friendship which we swore 87 

Some laws there are too sacred for the hand 36 

Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet 49 

Spring speaks again, and all our woods are stirred 76 

Surprised by joy — impatient as the Wind 31 

That he is dead the sons of kings are glad 71 

That time of year thou mayst in me behold 15 

The bubble of the silver-springing waves 59 

The darkness throbbed that night with the great heat 92 

The dead abide with us! Though stark and cold 82 

The expense of spirit in a waste of shame 17 

The garlands fade that Spring so lately wove 26 

The holiest of all holidays are those 44 

The hollow sea-shell which for years hath stood 86 

The lost days of my life until to-day 66 

The Ocean, at the bidding of the Moon 47 

The nightmare melts at last, and London wakes 99 

The poetry of earth is never dead 39 

113 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES 

The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings 2 

The world is too much with us; late and soon 30 

There is a silence where hath been no sound 42 

These have I lost: now cushats only call 104 

These strewn thoughts, by the mountain pathway sprung. 102 

They do but grope in learning's pedant round 42 

They rose to where their sovran eagle sails 52 

This holy season, fit to fast and pray 3 

Though to the vilest things beneath the moon 56 

To leave unseen so many a glorious sight 46 

To one who has been long in city pent 39 

To stand upon a windy pinnacle 79 

Two Voices are there; one is of the sea 30 

Under the arch of Life, where love and death 66 

Were I as base as is the lowly plain 10 

What art thou. Mighty One! and where thy seat? 34 

What lies beyond the splendour of the sun 92 

What means this mighty chant, wherein the wail 77 

What meant the poets in invective verse 8 

What power is this? What witchery wins my feet 72 

What was't awakened first the untried ear 41 

When do I see thee most, beloved one? 64 

When I behold what pleasure is Pursuit 76 

When I consider how my light is spent 23 

When I consider Life and its few years 95 

When I hear laughter from a tavern door 80 

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes 12 

When in the chronicle of wasted time 16 

When in the dark we slowly drift away 97 

When our two souls stand up erect and strong 51 

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 13 

Where Venta's Norman castle still uprears 25 

While men pay reverence to the mighty things 75 

Whoso list to hunt? I know where is an hind! 1 

With brain o'erworn, with heart a summer clod 83 

With heart not yet half -rested from Mont Blanc 55 

With how sad steps, O Moon! thou climb 'st the skies! 6 

With stammering lips and insuflBcient sound 49 

With you a part of me hath passed away 101 

Yet it is pitiful how friendships die 80 

Yon silvery billows breaking on the beach 71 



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